nanded rally is a shock. nanded is to INC what amethi and raebareli is to congis. the crowd was mostly from adjoining munde strongholds, still nanded has considerable sikh population - they're not deciding factor, but they are swinging lotus wards. entire cadre of marathwada is energized.Muppalla wrote:See the sun and the heat these days in this area and people are really looking forward to a change. Atri mahashay - we need your snippets related to Nanded and surrounding areas.
difficult to say whether this will translate into seat. MIM making strong inroads in that region. only aurangabad and beed are sure seats in marathwada. others are open game, with modi wave in place.
vidarbha is surely in kitty (9 seats out of 10). northeren MH is in kitty (jalgaon, dhule, nandurbar sure, nashik is open game). Konkan (palghar, ratnagiri, sindhudurg are neutral with strong modi wave). Mumbai (2 seats for sure, others are open game - depends how MNS is tackled. they are saying MNS will start campaigning from tomorrow. will see how intense that is. so far, no presence on roads). Public is aware of the fact that voting for MNS will not help modi. RT does not have candidates to prop up, hence chutiyas like mahesh manjrekar (allegedly close to the "BHAI") are propped up. there is very strong modi wave in MH, bordering on hindutva-wave plus bijli-sadak-pani wave. the fratricidal infighting is what is undoing the sureshot cleansweep. There are high chances of them repeating the performance of 1996 (33 seats), but I still put my money on 25 seats with BJP winnign 17-18. Shivsena has awakened, it seams, but lot of ground to cover.
regarding western MH, only baramati and satara seats are sureshot in congi kitty. all others, for the first time are open game with advantage towards congress but with good fight and last minute small swing will fall in NDA's basket (although with small margins).
one notable thing I noticed, people have drastically reduced watching ndtv and ibn and shifting towards watching zee (this trend is more visible in vidarbha and marathwada). This is happening subconsciously, when asked why spend more time on zee, they do not know - most of them simply said i don't know, just like that. this subconscious shift was interesting to observe.