The way Maharashtrians have swung...
Anant Gaundalkar
The tumultuous political situation in the country has forced as
many as three Lok Sabha and two assembly elections in
Maharashtra in the nineties. And the results of these polls reveal a
changing scenario in the state.
To start with, during the 1990 assembly poll, the Congress snatched as
many as 141 seats of the total 288, and Sharad Pawar continued
his stint as chief minister. The Congress domination was again highlighted during the 1991 general
election when it clinched 38 seats. Pawar was then inducted in the central government as the
defence minister, as a result of which Sudhakar Naik
became chief minister. It was during Naik's tenure that Bombay witnessed
the worst-ever communal riots in Indian history. Pawar returned to take up the CMship again.
Then came the historic assembly election of 1995. The Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena combine captured
137 seats. Thus, the first-ever non-Congress government,
in the true sense of the word, was sworn in with the
Shiv Sena's Manohar Joshi as chief minister and the BJP's Gopinath Munde
as his deputy.
In the Lok Sabha poll which followed a year later,
the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance got 33 seats.
But now, after three years of power in the state, the alliance has suffered its
first major crisis as the Congress swept the polls with overwhelming
majority.
The following are the results of the two recent assembly and three Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra:
| Party | 1990 assembly elections
| 1991 Lok Sabha election | 1995 assembly election
| 1996 Lok Sabha election | 1998 Lok Sabha election
|
| Congress | 141 | 38
| 80 | 15 | 33 |
| BJP | 42 | 5 |
64 | 18 | 4 |
| Janata Dal | 24 | _
| 11 | _ | _ |
| Shiv Sena | 52 | 4
| 73 | 15 | 6 |
| PWP | 8 | _ |
6 | _ | 1 |
| ICSS | 1 | _ |
_ | _ | _ |
| CPI | 2 | _ |
3 | _ | _ |
| CPM | 2 | |
| | |
| Muslim League | 1 | _
| _ | _ | _ |
| RPI | 1 | _ |
_ | _ | 4 |
| SJP | _ | _ |
3 | _ | _ |
| MVC | _ | _ |
1 | _ | _ |
| NVAS | _ | _ |
1 | _ | _ |
| Independents | 13 | _
| 46 | _ | _ |
| Total seats | 288 | 48
| 288 | 48 | 48
|
Key: BJP: Bharatiya Janata Party, PWP: Peasants
and Workers Party, ICSS: Indian Congress Socialist, CPI: Communist
Party of India, CPM: Communist Party of India-Marxist, RPI:
Republican Party of India, SJP: Samajwadi Janata Party, MVC: Maharashtra
Vikas Congress, NVAS: Nag Vidharbha Andolan Samiti.
Elections '98
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