"Congress Will...": Piyush Goyal's Prediction For Maharashtra Election

The Congress will be the "worst-performing" opposition party in next week's Maharashtra Assembly election, Union Minister Piyush Goyal declared to NDTV Friday, pointing to what he claimed were rifts within its state unit and with its leadership in Delhi.

"I think the Congress is in the worst situation... local leadership is crestfallen. It had high hopes of being the dominant partner (in the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance) but I believe there is friction within the party and within the centre and state units, and they are all a very unhappy lot."

"My own sese is that among the opposition (including the Shiv Sena and NCP factions led by Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar), the worst-performing will be the Congress," he said.

The MVA of the Congress, the Thackeray Sena, and Sharad Pawar's NCP faction struggled to close seat-share talks before this election, with nominations for nearly a dozen seats going right down to hours before last month's deadline. That delay sparked talk of a rift within the alliance.

READ | "All Nominations Done": Congress Denies Maharashtra Alliance Turmoil

Any delay has also been underlined by the Congress' collapse in Haryana this month, in which it surrendered, under contentious circumstances, a big early lead to the ruling BJP. Many allies - including the Thackeray Sena - said the Congress' failure to accommodate allies led to the loss.

READ | "Arrogant, Overconfident": Allies Twist Knife In Congress Over Haryana

The BJP"s alliance - with the Sena and NCP groups led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy, Ajit Pawar - has also had trouble closing deals, in what has been a challenging election.

Meanwhile, Mr Goyal also spoke about the row over election officials checking bags of high-profile campaigners, dismissing it as trivial and claiming it shows the MVA will lose this poll.

"I think it very clearly shows the MVA is losing. I have yet to come across any election where such trivial issues are discussed... during elections cars and helicopters of all leaders are checked and it is amazing the MVA assumes they should have separate privileges," he said.

"This reminds of (Congress leader) Pramod Tiwari who, when Rahul Gandhi was sentenced for defamation, said there should be a separate law for the Gandhi family..." Mr Goyal said.

The senior BJP leader said his party respected the contribution of all leaders, including from the opposition and those from the past (referring in a roundabout manner to former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi) but the law has to be the same for everyone."

The comment about bags being checked comes after a row was kicked up over Uddhav Thackeray's luggage being searched - twice in 48 hours and four times, overall, this week - by election officials tasked with doing so to guard against the spread of money or bribes for votes.

Mr Thackeray had filmed videos of his gruff interactions with those officials and posted them online, demanding to know if ruling party bigwigs, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, were exempt from such protocol.

The bags of opposition leaders like Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge were searched this week.

READ |Bags Of Kharge, Nana Patole Checked Amid U Thackeray Luggage Row

Days after Mr Thackeray's question, the bags of Maharashtra Chief Minister Shinde and his deputy, Devendra Fadnavis, and the helicopter of Mr Shah were checked by poll officials.

The 2024 Maharashtra election will be held in a single phase on November 20 and the results for all 288 seats will be announced three days later, with those for the two-phase Jharkhand poll.

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