Congress in-charge for Maharashtra Ramesh Chennithala, who is pinning his hopes of becoming the legislature party leader in Kerala on the Maharashtra election results, has rubbished the exit polls predicting a comfortable win for the BJP-led Mahayuti.

The senior leader from Kerala had been camping in Maharashtra for 10 months, shaping the Congress’s strategy and coordinating with its allies. He played a stellar role in ensuring that dissident activities did not affect the seat-sharing process for the Congress, which is part of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) along with Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharad Pawar).

If the Congress single-handedly manages 80-85 seats and the MVA gets 150–160 seats, the Congress high command will have to toe Chennithala’s line.

Chennithala was peeved at the Congress high command for relegating him to a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee, a post he held two decades ago. As a placatory move, the party made him the in-charge of Maharashtra where Chennithala’s performance was endorsed by NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Rahul Gandhi.

Both of them openly appreciated his tactical moves when he addressed the seat-sharing mechanism and also the way he handled the dissident activities.

Chennithala told The Telegraph that he had visited all the 36 revenue districts in Maharashtra and met local Congress leaders on numerous occasions during his 10-month stint there.

Asked what’s next, Chennithala said: “I don’t know what’s in store for me. Let’s wait and see.”