NEW DELHI :  After the electoral defeat in Haryana due to infighting, the Congress party is planning to contest the Maharashtra assembly elections with great caution.

Efforts will be made to avoid the mistakes that were made in Haryana. Infighting in the Congress is the oldest problem that has been difficult for this old ailing party to deal with.
Maharashtra is the second largest state with 288 assembly seats. Elections in the state are important for the party to re-establish its hold in the region. In the last assembly elections, the Congress was fourth among the four parties and won only 44 out of 288 seats. The BJP won 105, the undivided Shiv Sena 56 and the undivided NCP 54 seats.
After the Shiv Sena broke away from the BJP, the Congress was in power for more than two years as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi in alliance with the NCP and Shiv Sena. The party performed well in Maharashtra in the recently held Lok Sabha elections and won 13 of the 17 seats.
However, the Maharashtra assembly elections have become exciting after a large number of leader scions entered the fray. The first list of candidates released by the BJP includes several heavyweights including Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The BJP has 99 names in this list. There are 288 seats in the Maharashtra Assembly and the BJP is likely to contest around 160 seats. The remaining seats are being contested by its allies Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP.
Mr Fadnavis is contesting from Nagpur West assembly seat, which he has been representing since 2009. Nagpur is a BJP stronghold and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari represents this parliamentary seat in the Lok Sabha. Four of the six assembly constituencies in the Lok Sabha constituency are held by the BJP. Among other heavyweights, state BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule is contesting from Kamathi in Nagpur district. Sitting Minister of State Sudhir Mungantiwar has been fielded as the BJP candidate from Ballarpur seat and Union Minister Raosaheb Danve’s son Santosh from Bhokardan.
The saffron party has fielded Srijaya Chavan from Bhokar; she is the daughter of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, who joined the BJP from the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and is now a Rajya Sabha member. Sitting MLA from Mulund Mihir Kotecha has been renominated and three-time MLA Ram Kadam will again contest from Mumbai’s Ghatkopar West seat.
BJP’s Mumbai chief Ashish Shelar will contest from Vandre West and Minister of State Chandrakant Patil from Kothrud. Mr Shelar’s brother has also got a pass to contest and will contest from Malad West. Subhash Deshmukh is the BJP candidate from Solapur and Nitesh Rane, son of senior leader and former Union Minister Narayan Rane, is contesting from Kankavli. The BJP’s first list for the Maharashtra elections has 13 women candidates, including six from the Scheduled Tribes and four from the Scheduled Castes. The BJP has re-nominated several sitting MLAs in Maharashtra.
The party is known for replacing most of its sitting representatives in state and national elections to neutralise the effects of anti-incumbency and provide a fresh option to voters. Its decision to stick with sitting MLAs in this election shows that it is confident of a tough electoral contest.
In the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, the BJP-Sena-NCP alliance had suffered a setback, winning just 17 of the 48 parliamentary seats in Maharashtra. The Maha Vikas Aghadi bloc of the Shiv Sena (Uttar Pradesh), Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP performed brilliantly by winning 30 seats in the politically crucial state.
The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance had registered an impressive victory in the 2019 state elections in Maharashtra. However, disagreements over the chief minister’s post led to the allies splitting and Uddhav Thackeray forged an alliance with the Congress and NCP to form the government. The government fell after a rebellion led by Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde, who then took over as chief minister. Between the 2019 elections and the upcoming one, the Shiv Sena and the NCP have split, changing the political landscape of Maharashtra and making this election even more exciting.
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