Published 23:22 IST, October 17th 2019
Maharashtra Opinion polls: BJP projected to win from Colaba
Republic-Jan Ki Baat's Opinion poll projects that Bharatiya Janata Party's Rahul Narwekar will defeat Indian National Congress' Ashok Jagtap in the polls
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Republic Media Network, along with Psephologist Pradeep Bhandari's Jan Ki Baat has surveyed the public perception prior to the Maharashtra and Harayana assembly polls. Maharashtra, traditionally an NCP-INC stronghold witnessed a shift in power during the 2014 Assembly polls when BJP's saffron wave took over the western state as well. The Narendra Modi-lead BJP won a majority of the seats in the elections and aligned with the Shiv Sena to form the government.
Opinion poll results
As per Republic-Jan Ki Baat's Opinion poll based on on-ground surveys ahead of the elections, Colaba is likely to witness BJP's Rahul Narwekar beating Ashok Jagtap of the INC to win the seat. Narwekar has been a part of Shiv Sena, NCP before and is now the ruling party's face for the elections. He's the son of the NCP leader Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar. The Colaba constituency in Maharashtra is a key and prominent seat in the Maharashtra assembly elections, which was, in 2014, won by Raj K Purohit, by defeating Pandurang Sakpal of Shiv Sena.
Maharashtra assembly polls
Maharashtra and Haryana will be going to polls on Monday, October 21, with the counting of the polls set to take place on Thursday, October 24. The campaigning for both the states has been going on for a few weeks, with the heavyweights of all parties seeing themselves campaigning for the candidates. PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have been addressing as many as three to four rallies per day. The BJP has aligned with the Shiv Sena for the polls after a lot of back and forth over multiple issues such as CM designate and other important portfolios. In the 2014 elections, the two parties did not align before the elections, but it did not have any impact on BJP who the highest number of seats, forcing the Shiv Sena to join hands with the party.
The Indian National Congress has been campaigning hard as well, although the grand old party of Indian politics has been facing some serious issues. Internally, many party members have left over the past month few months and the members who are in the party have been engaged in infighting. The Congress and the NCP, in the run-up to the election, broke their 15-year alliance after they could not come to a seat-sharing agreement, and the effects of the fallout were seen in the results of the poll since both parties won less than 50 seats individually. This time, however, the parties are not looking to repeat their mistakes and are fighting a united front.
21:02 IST, October 17th 2019