Mumbai: Mumbai: As in other states the Congress had no good news coming from Maharashtra too, where it has been able to win only two seats out of the total 48 in the state. The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance backed 41 seats, while the NCP-Congress got only 6 seats. The BJP-shiv Sena alliance had won 19 seats in the 2009 elections. While BJP won 9 seats in the 2009 elections, Shiv Sena sent 11 MPs to the Lok Sabha in 2009. At 48 Maharashtra has the second largest Lok Sabha seats after Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 seats.
The Congress has taken a backseat because of the Narendra Modi wave in all the seats in Mumbai. Congress won 5 seats in Mumbai in the 2009 elections while its ally the Nationalist Congress Party held the Mumbai North-East seat. Two-time MP from Mumbai North Central Priya Dutt has lost to BJP's Poonam Mahajan, while Milind Deora lost to Shiv Sena's Arvind Sawant.
The AAP, which campaigned aggressively in Mumbai is nowhere in the picture. Medha Patkar and Mayank Gandhi have fared very badly in their constituencies, so did other candidates. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, too, hasn't done any wonders in this election. It hasn't been able to win a single seat; in the 2009 elections, too, it failed to send an MP to the Lok Sabha.
The Congress has won Nanded seat, where Adarsh scam tainted Ashok Chavan was in the fray. Meanwhile, the good news for the Congress may not last long, as Chavan is facing disqualification in a paid news case. Chavan is accused of running paid news in newspapers during the 2009 Maharashtra Assembly polls.
The Supreme Court had last week ruled that the EC had power to investigate candidates' poll expenses and could even disqualify them. If disqualified as an MLA, Chavan may face similar action if he is elected as an MP.
In Hingoli, Congress's Rajeev Shankarrao Satav has won the seat with a margin of just 1632 votes. Congress's ally NCP won 4 seats. Much to the expectations, Supriya Sule retained his family bastion Baramati. The other seats where NCP came out as a winner are Kolhapur, Satara and Raigad.
Meanwhile, bearing burnt of the anti-Congress's wave, NCP's stalwarts Praful Patel from Bhandara-Gondiya and Chhagan Bhujbal from Nashik have also lost to their BJP and Shiv Sena counterparts respectively.
The mood in the Maharashtra is also troubling for the Congress-NCP lead Pritviraj Chauhan as the state will go the Assembly elections later this year. Chavan is already facing people's wrath because of corruption charges against the state Congress government and farmer's death in Maharashtra.
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