Maharashtra election results: People’s verdict on his bloc, Eknath Shinde is now the ‘real’ Sena | India News – Times of India

MUMBAI: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Saturday, and in quite convincing fashion, established himself as the leader of the real Shiv Sena.
With his party having won 57 seats – one more than the undivided Shiv Sena’s 56 in the 2019 Assembly elections and a whopping 35 more than Shiv Sena-UBT’s Saturday tally – he now has the first claim to not only Sena’s political legacy- founder Bal Thackeray. also the basic support which was hitherto believed to rest with Uddhav Thackeray.
Shinde Sena’s success rate – the number of seats contested divided by the number of victories – made its victory even more remarkable. His party contested only 81 seats and won 57 with a strike rate of 70.4%. In 2019, the undivided Sena had contested 124 seats and won 56, a strike rate of 45.2%. And in 1995, when the undivided Shiv Sena had won 73 seats, the highest ever, the strike rate was 43.2%.
Shinde Sena is now the state’s number one regional party, after national behemoth BJP, and miles ahead of Sharad Pawar’s NCP. Political observers said that now that he has made a deep foray into Mumbai, the traditional stronghold of Shiv Sena-UBT, it is only a matter of time before he challenges Uddhav Thackeray for control of the cash-rich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). There is a possibility of Shinde poaching Sena-UBT’s MLAs, MPs and influential ‘shakha pramukhs’ in Mumbai.
Shinde’s Sena contested 15 seats in Mumbai and won five. Uddhav’s Sena contested 22 and won 10. Nearly all the 40 sitting Sena MLAs won, as did the Cabinet ministers, illustrating the meticulous planning that went into the selection of candidates. Shiv Sena MP Shrikant Shinde characterized Shinde Sena’s victory as the end of running Shiv Sena as a private company. “People have given their verdict on who will take Balasaheb’s legacy forward,” he said.