Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Will Maharashtra witness better governance under Modi?' that was published in Newsband

Will Maharashtra witness better governance under Modi?

The Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena alliance shocked the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine by winning 42 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. It was their best-ever performance since forming a Mahayuthi, or grand alliance, 25 years ago. While the BJP itself won 23 seats, the Shiv Sena took 18 and a third ally, the Swabhimani Paksha, picked up the Hatkanangle seat. The Congress, which won 17 seats in 2009, was reduced to winning just two while the NCP halved its 15th Lok Sabha tally, having had to settle for just four seats. In Mumbai, the Mahayuthi wrested all six seats from its opponents.

As in other parts of the country, the Maharashtra voters have made plain their dissatisfaction with the Congress. With Assembly elections round the corner, the Congress-NCP alliance has just a few months to win back the voters to their side. It will surely be a tough task for them.

In the coming assembly elections, Shiv Sena-BJP combine appears more likely to win. It will be interesting to see how Raj Thackeray's MNS will perform in the assembly elections. BJP has to tread cautiously and it can’t go with both parties and this may confuse the voters. It will be a good opportunity for BJP to add one more state to its kitty and let us hope to see a better Mumbai in the years to come. Mumbai has got the tag "financial capital" and it needs to retain that tag for many more years to come.

The voters are becoming smart and they are not supporting parties for their irrelevant promises. Today voters are seeing the performance and whether the leaders have been able to deliver their promises or not. Debacle of NCP/Congress in Maharashtra was solely because of the lack of seriousness shown by their leaders towards corruption, development etc. They were insensitive towards serious issues.

Let us now see whether Modi will be able to handle the expectation and responsibility of public. Will the change of ruling combine ensure good governance? Only time will tell. If you go by the history of Maharashtra, it has been proved that governance need not improve with change of the ruling combination. The economic and consequently job growth in the state of Maharashtra has been below par during last two decades. The finances of the State government are in shambles on account of poor governance, corruption and wastage of resources. Question which comes to a citizen's mind is this: Even if incompetent and corrupt Congress-NCP government is thrown out will governance improve or will citizens again get a choice of another bunch of equally corrupt politicians?