The alliance of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena is poised to form the government in Maharashtra again, but the big winner of the 2019 Assembly election is Sharad Pawar. Popularly known as the “Chanakya of Maharashtra”, the Nationalist Congress Party chief proved his mettle yet again, at the age of 79, securing 55 seats for his party, and 99 seats for the Congress-NCP alliance. 

It’s a performance that shook up the dynamics of this election, initially predicted to be a clean sweep for the BJP.

An enduring image of Pawar’s fighting spirit comes from a viral video of him giving a speech in Satara amidst torrential rains. Such was the impact of this image and Pawar’s emotional appeal that even Udayanraje Bhosale, a descendant of Shivaji, lost the October 21 byelection in Satara.

In the run-up to the election, Pawar relentlessly campaigned across the state, beginning in September. The Congress was conspicuous by its absence, its state and national leaders were nowhere to be seen. Sources in the Congress said the party expected to win 30-35 seats, not the 45 it finally gained, and senior central leaders were “not interested enough” in the Maharashtra election. The non-appearance of its Delhi leaders until the eve of polling resulted in the state leadership being clueless about the party’s strategy. Pawar became the only factor to pull them through.

The Shiv Sena, which scored 63 seats in the 2014 Assembly election, managed only 57 this year. The BJP expected to win between 120 and 130 seats. Its final tally is 102, almost 20 seats less. This gives the Shiv Sena a chance to ask for rotating the chief minister’s post between the two parties, something it has demanded in the past. The Sena would like each party to hold the post for two and a half years, and it’s likely to become a bone of contention once again. 

According to sources in the BJP, one issue that, surprisingly, went in Pawar’s favour was the recent Enforcement Directorate controversy. The NCP chief was booked by the ED in the ₹25,000-crore Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam in September, in the middle of the election season. Pawar’s name does not appear in Mumbai police’s FIR or the audit and inquiry reports on the alleged scam. When he offered to give a statement to the ED, the agency refused to take it. This gained him sympathy from voters.

It didn’t help that the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance was beset with defections. Several leaders from both parties contested independently after being denied tickets. A few of them managed to win too, defeating the BJP-Sena alliance’s candidates. For example, former BJP leader Vinod Agrawal contested from Gondia as an independent after the BJP denied him a ticket. Ironically, the candidate Agrawal beat is Gopal Agrawal, a former Congressman who joined the BJP just before the Assembly election.

Political analysts agree that the Congress-NCP alliance’s performance is down largely to Pawar. “People were impressed by Pawar’s fighting spirit at the age of 79 which helped him garner votes for his party and the Congress,” says political analyst Suhas Kulkarni. “Without him, the Congress could not have achieved these many seats.” He adds the defectors standing as independent candidates led to the BJP-Sena coalition losing at least 30 seats.

Analyst Rajeshwari Deshpande says Pawar played a “significant role”. “He is still recognised as one of the most revered leaders in Maharashtra. His speech in Satara managed to impress voters in large numbers. He channelised local contestation, especially against defectors.”