Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar on Friday expressed his intention to support a party or alliance to form the government in Maharashtra after the election results.

Prakash Ambedkar’s announcement comes a day before the counting of votes for the Maharashtra Assembly Elections on November 23.

In a post on X, Prakash said, “If the VBA gets the numbers tomorrow to support a party or an alliance to form the government in Maharashtra, we will choose to align with one that can form the government. We will choose power!”

Prakash Ambedkar’s post has attracted reactions on social media. Senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai reacted to VBA chief’s announcement saying, “Jai Bhim! Babasaheb must wonder if this is what the social and political revolution is all about! POWER at all costs Prakash Ambedkar ?? At least you are being candid now.”

Notably, in these elections, Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi has fielded around 200 candidates across Maharashtra. However, earlier this year, in the Lok Sabha elections, it fielded candidates in 38 seats but failed to win any. Despite this, it secured 2.77 percent of the total votes polled.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the VBA had garnered a significant 6.98 percent vote share, while it managed 5.57 percent in the Assembly elections held the same year.

Maharashtra voted on Wednesday in a single-phase election for all 288 Assembly seats.

The voter turnout figures released on Thursday by the BMC indicated a low turnout in the city during the November 20 assembly election. In Mumbai city district, voter participation stood at 52.65%, while the suburban district saw a slightly higher turnout of 56.39%; both figures are marginally higher than 2019.

In Mumbai city, which covers 10 constituencies, there are a total of 25,43,610 registered voters. Of these, 13,39,299 cast their ballots. The male voter turnout was 52%, with 7,10,174 out of 13,65,904 male voters participating. Female voters turnout was lower at 53%, with 6,29,049 women out of 11,77,462 voting. Additionally, 76 voters from the “other” category cast their ballots out of 244 eligible voters.

The lowest voter turnout in Mumbai city was recorded in Colaba, with just 44.44%. Other areas with low turnout included Mumbadevi (48.76%), Dharavi (50.03%), Malabar Hill (52.53%), and Byculla (53.02%). In contrast, Mahim saw the highest voter participation at 59.01%, followed by Wadala (57.67%), Shivadi (55.52%), Sion Koliwada (53.56%), and Worli (53.53%).

In Mumbai suburban, which encompasses 26 constituencies, the voter turnout reached 56.39%. There are 76,86,098 registered voters in this district, with 43,34,513 casting their votes. Among male voters, 57% participated 23,58,589 out of 41,01,457, while 57% of female voters also voted 20,33,654 out of 35,83,803. Additionally, 270 people from the ‘other’ category voted out of 838 eligible individuals.

The lowest voter turnout in the suburban district was seen in constituencies such as Vandre West (51.36%), Versova (51.44%), Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar (52.14%), Kalina (52.68%), and Chandivali (52.97%). On the other hand, the highest turnout was recorded in constituencies like Bhandup West (62.88%), Borivali (62.32%), Mulund (61.42%), Ghatkopar West (59.99%), and Ghatkopar East (59.58%).

Several constituencies in Mumbai witnessed a significant rise in voter participation compared to the 2019 assembly elections. In Andheri West, the voting percentage jumped from 43.52% in 2019 to 53.67% in 2024; a rise of over 10%. Versova’s turnout rose from 42.38% in 2019 to 51.44% this year, while Mulund saw an increase from 53.81% to 61.42%. Vandre West’s turnout also grew substantially from 44% to 51.36%, with a similar trend in Goregaon (from 46.44% in 2019 to 55.61% this year) and Shivadi’s 49.33% in 2019 to 55% in 2024.

With most of the exit polls predicting a majority for the Mahayuti led by the BJP, the saffron party is preparing to occupy a central position post the results which will be declared on Saturday. The main question is who will be the BJP’s candidate for chief ministership. The party had assiduously avoided projecting anyone as the CM candidate and has preferred to wait for the results to be declared. However, considerable significance is assigned to Fadnavis’ meeting with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat at the Sangh’s headquarters in Mahal, Nagpur, on Thursday.  Officially it is being said Fadnavis called on Bhagwat to thank for the massive voter mobilisation that the Sangh Parivar did during the assembly poll of November 20. 

Sources in the BJP told that in June, 2022 the party made a big blunder in agreeing to have Eknath Shinde, the rebel Shiv Sena leader, as the CM. Fadnavis (54) had played a crucial role behind the scenes in vertically splitting the Shiv Sena and pulling down the Uddhav Thackeray government. He staged a coup right under the nose of Thackeray by weaning  away Shinde and his pack of 36 MLAs away from Uddhav Thackeray.  For all his efforts, it was widely assumed in BJP circles that Fadnavis would be rewarded with the CM’s post, especially since the party had the maximum number of MLAs at 105.  

However, the cadres and Fadnavis himself was stunned when the BJP high command wanted Shinde to be the CM.  In fact, Fadnavis publicly made his disappointment public by asserting that he was not interested in joining the Shinde-led government. It required a lot of cajoling from PM Modi and home minister Amit Shah to get him to work under Shinde. 

The central leadership’s calculation was that by anointing Shinde as the CM the Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray would be politically emaciated. However, the past two years’ experience has proved the BJP central leaderships’ calculations wrong. The Shiv Sena (UBT) is not only strong but in fact put up a rather impressive performance in the Lok Sabha elections early this year at the cost of the BJP.

Several persons in the BJP are saying, in retrospect, that had Fadnavis been made the CM after the eclipse of the MVA government led by Thackeray the party would have politically become stronger and done well in the LS polls. “We hope that the central leadership of our party will learn a lesson from the mistakes committed by it in the past and this time around recommend Fadnavis for the CM’s post. He has already served as CM from 2014 to 2019 and acquitted himself well as a good administrator,” a senior BJP leader observed.

There are a few other contenders for the CM’s post like Pankaja Munde, Chandrakant Patil and Vinod Tawde. But none of them have the political stature of Fadnavis who is keen on working only in Maharashtra. The only minus point is that he belongs to the Brahmin caste which is traditionally distrusted by the Marathas. But then it was Fadnavis who took the initiative to pass a law providing for reservation for Marathas. 

All these calculations are based on the surmise that the psephologists have got it right this time around vis-a-vis the assembly poll outcome. Also, the increase in voting percentage is expected to help the BJP.  However, the BJP has kept a Plan B ready lest its calculations go awry. The party is not averse to taking the help of Sharad Pawar if the Mahayuti falls short of numbers.  The Central government has already put tremendous pressure on Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule in the Rs 250 cr bitcoin case. It might politically weaponise the case to make Pawar fall in line. It may even agree to accommodate Supriya as the deputy CM.

It may be recalled that Pawar, for all his secular posturings, has as early as 1978 joined hands with the Janata Party (of which the major component was the Bharatiya Jana Sangh) to become the CM. More recently, he was part of the plot to let his nephew Ajit Pawar join hands with the BJP to form a government in November, 2019. Also, industrialist Gautam Adani is a common link between Pawar Sr and the BJP.