Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has suffered another setback in legislative council polls in the state of Maharashtra, where it won only 1 of the 6 seats up for grabs.
While the state's governing Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)-Congress coalition bagged four seats and an independent candidate secured the fifth seat. The elections were held earlier this week.
Responding to poll results, Maharashtra's former state chief and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis said, "The results of the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls are not as per our expectations. We were expecting more seats but won only one. We miscalculated the combined power of the three parties (Maha Vikas Aghadi)".
The BJP lost its strongholds such as Nagpur, Amaravati, and Pune. It comes as a major embarrassment for the party because Nagpur is touted as the borough of Fadnavis and federal minister Nitin Gadkari, both of whom campaigned for the polls.
The only seat that the national party secured was Dhule-Nandurbar.
Speaking to the media and celebrating the victory of the three-party coalition (MVA), NCP chief Sharad Pawar termed the results a "reflection of MVA's" performance over the past year.
The latest political setback has come after the federally ruling BJP lost power to the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance in state elections in October of last year. Despite emerging as the single largest party with 105 seats, the BJP couldn't form a government as it failed to cross the majority mark in the 288-member assembly. As a result, the Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress formed a coalition government in the state.
