In the aftermath of the BJP’s commanding performance in the Maharashtra local body elections, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has asked party leaders to exercise restraint and avoid sharp attacks on allies within the Mahayuti alliance. the message was conveyed during a late night core committee meeting held at the Chief Minister’s official residence, where the party reviewed both its successes and shortcomings.

Despite the BJP emerging as the single largest force in the civic polls, Fadnavis is said to have flagged defeats in several municipal councils and nagar panchayats, including in districts represented by BJP legislators. The Chief Minister reportedly told leaders that the party must aim for stronger performance in civic elections, especially at the grassroots level.

Fadnavis issued a clear warning against public criticism of allies, including Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party. He advised leaders to maintain discipline even if seat sharing arrangements fail to materialise during upcoming civic polls.

The directive comes after a tense run up to the local body elections, during which seat sharing talks within the NDA camp repeatedly stalled. Several constituencies witnessed so called friendly contests, with alliance partners pitted against each other, leading to sharp exchanges on the ground.

The Mahayuti alliance of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena and NCP swept elections to 288 municipal councils and nagar panchayats across the state. Together, the allies secured 207 president posts, while the opposition alliance of Congress, Shiv Sena UBT and NCP SP was restricted to just 44.

The BJP won 117 president posts, followed by the Sena with 53 and the NCP with 37. In the opposition camp, Congress emerged as the best performer with 28 posts, though it fell far short of challenging the ruling alliance’s dominance.

A key takeaway from the results has been the performance of the Shinde led Shiv Sena. This was the first major election since the Sena split in which the party directly contested against the BJP in several seats. Despite being the junior partner in the Mahayuti, the Sena posted a higher strike rate than the BJP.

The party also expanded beyond its traditional strongholds in the Konkan region and the Thane belt, making notable inroads into rural and semi urban Maharashtra. Celebrating the outcome, Shinde said critics who claimed the Sena was confined to Thane had received their answer, asserting that the party had reached from Chanda to Banda across the state.

Thanking voters for their support, Fadnavis described the local body poll results as a trailer of what lies ahead in the upcoming municipal corporation elections. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation election is scheduled for January 15, with results to be declared the following day.

The last BMC polls were held in 2017, when the undivided Shiv Sena emerged as the single largest party. This time, the two Sena factions will face off in a high stakes prestige battle. Shinde’s strong showing is expected to bolster his bargaining position with the BJP during seat sharing talks, while the opposition faces an uphill task in recovering from successive electoral setbacks.

Berlin, Dec 23: Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has once again mounted a sharp attack on the BJP, reiterating allegations of ‘vote chori’ and claiming that India is witnessing a “full-scale assault on the institutional framework” of the country.

Addressing a gathering at the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany, on the theme ‘Politics Is The Art Of Listening’, Gandhi said the Haryana Assembly elections in 2024 and the Maharashtra Assembly elections in 2024 “were not fair”.

He alleged that the Congress party had formally raised concerns with the Election Commission of India, but did not receive any response.

“We fundamentally believe that there is a problem with the electoral machinery in India. The second thing is that there is a wholesale capture of our institutional framework,” Gandhi said.

He alleged that key institutions had been compromised, adding, “When you look at our intelligence agencies, you look at the CBI, you look at the ED, they’ve been weaponised.”

Pointing to what he described as selective action by central agencies, Gandhi said, “Look at the number of cases that the ED and the CBI have against the BJP people. You’ll find the answer is zero. And look at the number of cases they have against people who oppose them.”

According to Gandhi, this has created an atmosphere where institutions are no longer performing their mandated roles.

“From our perspective, the Congress perspective, we helped build the institutional framework. So we never viewed it as our own institutional framework. That’s not how the BJP sees it,” he said.

He alleged that the ruling party considers institutions as instruments of political power.

“The BJP views the institutional framework of India as belonging to them. And so they use it as a tool for building political power. Just look at the difference between how much money the BJP has and how much the opposition has. You’ll see a ratio of 30:1,” he said.

Gandhi said the Opposition must actively devise ways to respond to what he described as systemic challenges.

“It’s not good enough for us to say, ‘Oh, you know, there’s a problem in the elections.’ We will deal with it. And we will create a method, a system of opposition resistance that will succeed,” he added.

Responding to a question on the INDIA bloc, Gandhi said alliances are often viewed only through the prism of elections. He urged a broader understanding of the grouping.

“Look at it slightly differently. All the parties of the INDIA bloc do not agree with the basic ideology of the RSS. That’s the point. And you can ask any of them. None of them will tell you that actually we believe in the ideological position of the RSS,” he said.

He acknowledged that differences exist among alliance partners but stressed that unity prevails when it matters.

“So we are very much united on that question. But we have tactical contests that take place, and we will continue to have them,” Gandhi said.

“But you will see that when it comes to the Opposition requiring unity, and you see it every day in Parliament, for example, we are very united. And we will contest the BJP on the laws we disagree with. It’s a deeper battle now than simply elections. Now we are fighting a battle for an alternate vision of India,” he added.

Citing recent electoral victories, Gandhi said, “We have won elections in Telangana, Himachal Pradesh. We have been raising issues as far as the fairness of elections in India is concerned.”

He claimed that the Congress party had presented evidence to back its claims.

“I have done press conferences in India where we have clearly shown without a shadow of a doubt that we won the Haryana election and that we don’t feel the Maharashtra elections were fair,” Gandhi said.

Reiterating his allegations against the Election Commission, Gandhi said, “There is a full-scale assault taking place on the institutional framework of our country. We asked direct questions to the Election Commission. A Brazilian woman was on the voting list 22 times in Haryana… We did not get a response.”

“We fundamentally believe that there is a problem with the electoral machinery in India,” he added.

Kolkata, Dec 23: Each Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) will daily handle 150 cases of hearings on claims and objections to the draft voters’ list in West Bengal from Saturday, as per the target set by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The daily target had been fixed keeping in mind the schedule of the second and third stages of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in West Bengal so that the hearing session could be concluded within a reasonable period facilitating the process of the meeting the deadline for publishing the final voters’ list on February 14 next year, sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal said.

“Initially, the Commission was thinking of setting the target for daily lists of hearings at 100. However, finally it has decided to fix that daily target at 150, so that enough reserve time is available for examinations of the decisions in those hearings before finally publishing the final voters’ list on February 14 next year,” the sources said.

Each table of hearing will have one ERO, one Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO), and one micro-observer specially appointed by the Commission to supervise the hearing sessions.

These micro-observers will either direct central government staff or staff of central public sector undertakings or public banks, all of whom will be from the Group B category. However, the Commission said that all these micro-observers will be recruited from these categories of employees who are currently posted in West Bengal.

The process of sending notices for hearings started on Monday. The booth-level officers (BLOs) will reach the doorsteps of the voters concerned and hand over two copies of the notices to them.

The voter will retain one copy, and return the other copy to the BLO after signing it. The hearing session will be in two phases. In the first phase, “unmapped voters”, not having links with the 2002 list either through “self mapping” or “progeny mapping” will be summoned for hearings.

In the second phase, cases with doubtful family tree data detected in “progeny mapping” will be summoned.

The draft voters’ list was published on December 16.

The final voters’ list will be published on February 14. Soon after that, the Election Commission of India (ECI) will announce the polling dates for the crucial Assembly elections in West Bengal scheduled next year.