'This is the result of...': For the first time in 60 years, Maharashtra won't have Leader of the Opposition

For the first time in six decades, the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly will not have a Leader of the Opposition (LoP) due to opposition parties failing to meet the required strength of 10 per cent of the total Assembly seats. With the Assembly comprising 288 seats, at least 28 MLAs are necessary for a party to claim the LoP position. However, no opposition party crossed this threshold in the recently concluded elections.  

Congress secured only 16 seats, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 10, and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav faction) 20, leaving the opposition fragmented and without a recognised leader in the Assembly.  

The BJP-led Mahayuti coalition retained power with a landslide victory, winning 233 out of 288 seats. The BJP emerged as the largest party, bagging 132 seats. Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena won 57 seats, while Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's group secured 41.  

BJP Maharashtra Chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule blamed the opposition's alleged misdeeds for their poor performance. "This is the result of the wrong deeds of Congress and the opposition. They spread fake narratives in Lok Sabha elections and duped voters at that time. So when people came to know about this in Assembly polls, voters kicked them out as they did in Haryana," he said.  

Shiv Sena leader Manisha Kayande highlighted the significance of this development. "The Congress and the Uddhav Thackeray faction will no longer have a chance to be recognised as opposition leaders. This is the call of the people of Maharashtra, and we cannot comment further. The people of Maharashtra have not even deemed them worthy of being in the opposition, which is a significant development. Let’s see what happens next," she said.  

Meanwhile, Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara on Sunday said his party leaders were surprised over the information they got about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) being selectively "hacked." Parameshwara, who is also the All India Congress Committee observer of Maharashtra elections, said that party leaders including former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel discussed the EVM issues and are going to appeal to the Election Commission of India (ECI). 

"In Maharashtra, Congress and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) have done very badly. Everybody knows it. We and some of our leaders in Maharashtra sat together and analysed yesterday. Ashok Gehlot and Baghel, former Chief Ministers and we sat together. The information we got is surprising that EVMs are hacked, not in every constituency but selectively. I believe they have hacked the EVMs. That is what we discussed. If that is true, then we don't have to say anything about it and we are going to appeal to the Election Commission about this. The party will take a decision on that," Karnataka Home Minister told ANI. 

"In some states, EVMs are not hacked because they want to show that people have to believe (in EVM). It seems we have lost Maharashtra due to the EVM hack. We have also failed in strategizing. It seems that they will win as long as there are EVMs. we have been insisting that the ballot paper should come from the beginning, but the Election Commission denies it time and again," he said.