Mumbai: Breaking his silence over MVA’s massive defeat in Maharashtra assembly pills, NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday said while the alliance was confident of victory, the results were not on expected lines. He added that after this defeat the alliance will need to work harder.
In the results that were announced the Mahayuti alliance won 230 seats in the 281-member Assembly. The MVA got 45 seats, with NCP (SP) winning 10 seats. While the party was expected to get the largest seats in the alliance, it got the lowest after the results were announced.
We respect the mandate: Sharad Pawar
“We did not expect this result. Ultimately The decision has been taken by the people of the state and we respect that,” he added. The former Maharashtra Chief Minister pointed out that his party and rest of the alliance will review the reasons behind the setback.
Addressing the press conference Pawar observed that the Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti government’s Ladki Bahin scheme played an important reason in the outcome of results. “he women were told that the scheme would be closed if Mahayuti did not return to power. Because of this fear many women voted for Mahayuti,” he added. He noted that the voting percentage of women voters increased by 2.1 percent this time.
‘MVA was confident after Lok Sabha poll results’
“After the kind of results in Lok Sabha polls, we were more confident. Even the party workers worked hard on campaigning. The results suggest we would need to do more hard work to win the trust of the people,” he said. “I travelled all over the state. The Congress and Uddhav Thackeray’s candidates were also there. Wherever our candidate was there, workers of other parties too supported them. Everyone worked hard.”
Talking about allegations that were made against EVMs, he added, “I have heard the opinion of some colleagues regarding EVMs. But I do not have any authentic information about it. Till then I will not comment on it. People say that money has been distributed like never before.” Supporting the party’s decision to field Yugendra Pawar against Ajit Pawar in Baramati, he added that there was nothing wrong with the decision as someone had to contest the election.
