Maharashtra: Ashok Chavan's Nanded, 18 other seats go to polls tomorrow

At least until early March, Maharashtra was one of the more complex states to call, with prepoll surveys mostly predicting a neck-and-neck finish of the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena combine and the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance that runs the state government. Since early this month, however, surveys have estimated that voters are increasingly inclined to pick the NDA. The latest poll, by NDTV-Hansa , which has predicted a 275-plus tally for the NDA, has said the BJP will see one of its biggest gains in Maharashtra, where it predicts the party will add to its existing tally of 9 by 17 seats. [caption id=“attachment_1454051” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] The Lokniti, CSDS-IBN Election Tracker survey has had a slightly more modest estimation, but shows clear leads for the BJP-Sena anyway. According to the Election Tracker, the BJP-Shiv Sena-RPI alliance is expected to get 43 percent and the Congress-NCP alliance is likely to get 33 percent votes. The seat-share projections are equally clear – Where the Sena-BJP had 21 out of Maharashtra’s 48 seats in 2009, they could now win 24 to 30 seats, the Congress-NCP reduced to 16-22 seats. Other polls have reiterated what ground reports from the state have been saying. For one, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and his Nationalist Congress Party, a major ally of the UPA at the Centre, will witness a dramatic shrinking of their power. Simultaneously, with the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena set to win a mere 3 percent of the votes according to Election Tracker (even AAP is slated to get 5 percent), the Shiv Sena is being seen as newly energised, aided perhaps by the Modi wave and by the alliance with Dalit party RPI (Athavale). That’s part of the reason that Maharashtra is so significant for BJP prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi’s Mission 272 – the biggest ally of the UPA and its own oldest ally have their strongholds in the state. The other reason, of course, is that the parties are sparring for the lion’s share of the 48 Lok Sabha seats. There are also some political heavyweights whose fate will be decided on Thursday. The Vidarbha region’s 10 seats have already voted: The big names among those 10 include Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur who is facing a very tight contest; the NCP’s Praful Patel, from Gondia, also facing a tough challenge; seven-term MP Manikrao Gavit of the Congress in Nandurbar who is being challenged by a 25-year-old doctor Heena Gavit who herself switched to the BJP to get a ticket after having been a protege of the NCP’s Supriya Sule-led Rashtriya Yuvati Sena. On Thursday, 19 constituencies of the Marathwada, Western Maharashtra and Konkan regions will go to polls. There are plenty of heavyweights in the fray again. Among those set to score easy wins are Supriya Sule who is seeking a second term from Baramati , her father’s long-time constituency from where she won by over 3 lakh votes in 2009; former chief minister Ashok Chavan who is cocking a snook at detractors in Nanded ; BJP leader Gopinath Munde in Beed where the NCP’s top brass are campaigning aggressively against the backdrop of a keen personal rivalry between the senior Pawar and Munde. Then there are other seats where parties have much at stake. There’s the Latur seat , going to polls after Vilasrao Deshmukh’s death and amid a clear anti-Congress wave. There is Viswajeet Kadam in Pune, son of Maharashtra Congressman and minister Patangrao Kadam who was picked despite scam-tainted Suresh Kalmadi’s efforts to get the ticket. There is the Congress’s Rajeev Satav in Hingoli, on whose victory is hinged at least some of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s personal reputation – Satav, a Youth Congress executive, is known to be close to Rahul. In Konkan, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Congressman and minister Narayan Rane where his son and sitting MP Nilesh Rane’s re-election bid appears doomed with the NCP at war with the Ranes and the NCP cadre refusing to back Nilesh during campaigning.