'How can the voting percentage be higher than the actual polled votes?'
The Maharashtra assembly election results came as a shock to not just the political parties but to political observers too.
"The election results are unbelievable, nothing remotely connected to what we saw or experienced. There is no comparison between the results and what we saw...The verdict has shaken the faith of the people in our system," P C Chacko, working president of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar), tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier.
You said you were stunned by the Maharashtra assembly election results.
Yes, I am stunned. Experienced political people get an overall feel of the trend when they campaign.
We have seen so many elections, both Parliament and assembly in our lifetime.
From the reaction of the crowd, from the meetings we conduct -- of the opponents also -- we come to a conclusion.
In Maharashtra, this time, we got the feeling that people were totally against the government when they came out with a manifesto offering impossible things.
You should understand that the entire income of the Maharashtra government will not be sufficient to implement the programmes they have announced in the manifesto.
We have nothing against a government doing good for the people.
But you announce certain schemes to mislead people when you realise people are not in your favour. So, just to cover up their failures, knowing very well that the schemes are not implementable, they announce them to get votes.
The Opposition parties accused the Election Commission of delaying the election dates so that the Mahayuti government could announce schemes like Laadki Bahin...
Exactly. Today, the Election Commission is not an impartial body.
We have first-hand experience in this. When there was a split in our party, we went before the Election Commission with the credentials of the party.
Contrary to all precedence, the Commission gave the emblem and the name to the breakaway faction.
When there is a split in any political party, the first thing any Election Commission does is freeze the emblem.
How do you think the Congress has the hand symbol now? When splits happened in the Congress, the symbols changed from charkha to cow and calf to the hand symbol.
In our case, when we should have been given the original symbol if it was not frozen, it was given to the breakaway faction.
This time also, the Election Commission delayed announcing the dates so that the government could make announcements of the schemes like Laadki Bahin which helped them as more than 50% of the population is women.
What they have announced for the womenfolk might have helped them a little bit.
On the other side, Sharad Pawar was the most popular and respected leader in Maharashtra and there was a tremendous wave of sympathy for him.
I was with him in many constituencies and saw it with my own eyes. In western Maharashtra, there was a Sharad Pawar wave.
But the election results are unbelievable, nothing remotely connected to what we saw or experienced. There is no comparison between the results and what we saw.
It shows there is something fishy about the election results.
Ramesh Chennithala, who oversaw the Congress in Maharashtra, told a press conference in Mumbai that in his 42 years in politics, he had been part of many elections but never saw such disparity between the ground realities and the results.
See, we got 8 seats in the Parliament elections a few months ago. Now, in the assembly, we got 10 seats.
Is it really possible when one parliamentary constituency is seven assembly constituencies? It meant we had won in 70 assembly constituencies a few months ago.
The party should raise the demand for a recount in select constituencies. I hope that will bring out the truth.
Did you expect the people of Maharashtra to bestow the person who betrayed Sharad Pawar with these many seats?
It can never happen. People who know Sharad Pawar for half a century in various positions find it difficult to accept the results.
The verdict has shaken the faith of the people in our system.
The fact is, the Maharashtra election was very important for Narendra Modi and Amit Shah after the Parliament election verdict.
Do you feel people are okay with 'washing machine' politics if money is doled out to them through various schemes?
People are concerned only about today, and they are not concerned about 'washing machine' politics. Naturally, money will influence a great deal in an election.
People will accept any monetary benefit. Nobody will say, we don't want money.
Sometimes, people will not accept principled politics.
In the last Parliament election, the Mahayuti was struggling and just after a few months, we see a totally different result which is shocking for everyone. Nobody expected this kind of a result.
How can you accept that a party that won 8 parliamentary seats got only 10 assembly seats? Some of the assembly seats are our strong constituencies too.
Do you think it took time for the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi to be a cohesive group because of which you lost precious time and that affected the election results?
Yes, there was some delay, but I don't think it affected us.
See, we had Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thakheray and the Congress and there is a substantial number of votes and seats these three combinations can get.
The question is where are the basic votes of these parties? They just won't go to the other side. That's why we feel that something else happened.
How can the voting percentage be higher than the actual polled votes? This shows there is something fishy about the whole thing.
Then, there was the influence of money. They cooked up things to alter public opinion.
We will have to look into all the aspects.
We will also ask the Election Commission to count the VVPAT in some of our strong constituencies. I don't know whether it is fool proof.
How will the Maharashtra election result change the political landscape of India?
Modi knew that if we made it in Maharashtra, his government in Delhi would go as it will not easy for them to manage all the warring coalition partners.
If something different had happened in Maharashtra, it would have had its repercussions on the Delhi government.
So, they knew this was the most important thing they should harp on, and they did it and they did it excellently well.
What will happen to the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi now?
All of us will remain together. There are other like-minded parties also. The municipal elections are coming. Sharad Pawar is the tallest leader in the state, and he knows all the tactics needed in an election.
It is certain that something wrong has happened this time.
But public opinion is the strongest weapon, and every man and woman in the state feels that this would not have been the result if the polls were fair.
What do you think will happen to Rahul Gandhi and the Congress?
I don't want to comment on the Congress. Yes, I was with the Congress for many years. I left the Congress and joined the NCP.
But I will say one thing: The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi should have happened much earlier.
In 2019 itself, we should have formed an anti-BJP alliance. It did not happen due to lack of interest in the Congress party.
I think the Congress has realised it now. The party should take the initiative to form a non-BJP alliance in every state.
The Congress is not realistic when it comes to many crucial situations. But I don't want to put the blame on the Congress also.
The Congress is the major political party all over India. They should take a more realistic approach, and they should also show some concession to smaller parties so that they bring all the Opposition parties together. See, even a 1% vote share affects the results to a great extent.
But there are very few people in the Congress who can handle coalition politics. Even the senior leaders think that they are the old Congress!
What the Congress as a party should have done was they should have taken a more practical approach in knitting up a coalition which they did not do at the right time. So, we suffered, and we gave the field free to the BJP.
Now, the Congress should take Maharashtra as a lesson, and take the initiative to form a coalition in all the coming elections. They should be ready for some compromises as the common target is to defeat the BJP.
Nothing is more important than that. The Congress getting 5 seats more or 5 seats less is not important.
What is more important is whether our coalition can defeat the BJP or not.
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Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
