Congress, NCP feel rebels will drag Sena & BJP down

Mumbai: While exit polls have predicted a complete rout of the Congress and NCP in the Maharashtra assembly polls, three main Opposition parties -- Congress, NCP and the MNS -- are pinning their hopes on a couple of factors that they believe could make the BJP and Shiv Sena fall far short of what had been predicted.

Congress and NCP leaders, for instance, think that the exit polls could be wrong as there are BJP and Sena rebels in more than 50 assembly constituencies. NCP leader Rohit Pawar had told ET in the run-up to the assembly campaign that BJP and Sena rebels would end up hurting each other in a few seats.

In the past few days, the three parties have been going through the rebel list and constituencies, trying to assess how much damage the rebels might do to the BJP and Sena combine. Not just the rebels, Congress and NCP are also taking hope from the fact that there have been very high turnout in areas such as Kolhapur and Sangli in western Maharashtra which could actually upset the alliance.


For instance, in some constituencies like Kagal, the voter turnout has been 78.32%. A month back, Western Maharashtra had been ravaged by floods and many people were angry at the way the government handled the situation.

“We believe that the high turnout in these areas shows that we have been able to get the people to express their anger against the government’s delayed relief,” said Nawab Malik, state vice president of NCP.