Sat Nov 23 13:51:00 UTC 2024: ## BJP Sweeps Maharashtra Assembly Elections, Riding on Splits within Opposition

**Mumbai, India** – The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is poised for a resounding victory in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, securing its best-ever solo performance in the state. Preliminary results indicate the BJP has won 99 seats and is leading in 34 others, significantly outpacing the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).

The BJP’s success is largely attributed to the fracturing of the MVA, which suffered significant losses due to the defections within the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Eknath Shinde’s faction of the Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s breakaway NCP group, both now allied with the BJP, flipped approximately 75 seats from their parent parties. This significantly weakened the MVA, which currently holds only 45 seats. The Shinde Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP factions are projected to win a combined 98 seats.

While the BJP’s performance is impressive, it is likely to rely on its new allies to surpass the 145-seat majority mark. The MVA’s poor showing is a stark contrast to its victory in the recent Lok Sabha elections, where it won 30 out of 48 seats in the state.

Exit polls, while often inaccurate, largely predicted a BJP victory, although the scale of their win appears to have surpassed even the most optimistic projections. The MVA’s performance is significantly below what even the most pessimistic exit poll predicted.

The 2019 election saw a win for the BJP and the then-undivided Shiv Sena, however, a subsequent power struggle and defections dramatically reshaped the state’s political landscape. The splits within the Shiv Sena and NCP, culminating in multiple court battles, have fundamentally altered Maharashtra’s political dynamics and significantly contributed to the BJP’s triumph in these elections.

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