Battle of wits: On the Maharashtra and Jharkhand elections
Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand in November will, yet again, test the mettle of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, and the respective regional parties, just weeks after the elections in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir. By-elections in three Lok Sabha constituencies and 48 Assembly segments across States have also been announced. The political landscape in Maharashtra has been reshaped thoroughly since the 2019 election. The Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have split, with one faction each in alliance with the BJP and the Congress. The ruling Mahayuti, which the BJP is a part of, ended up with 17 of 48 seats in the 2024 general election, while the Maha Vikas Aghadi, of the Congress, the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Sena and the Sharad Pawa...