Of the three principal constituents of the Mahayuti alliance which has won the Maharashtra assembly elections decisively, the Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to be the most pleased with the poll results. This is because Maharashtra has helped the BJP kill many birds — adversities — with one stone. The Mahayuti’s performance in the Lok Sabha election in the state had been far below expectations. But the BJP’s showing in the state polls — the party has fetched its best-ever kitty in Maharashtra — after having won Haryana earlier against all odds, would certainly help it claim that the political momentum has returned to India’s ruling party. In fact, the win in Maharashtra could even come to serve as a potent shield for the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the rumbles that have risen, once again, against the businessman, Gautam Adani, who is perceived to be close to the regime.

That is not all; Maharashtra has showered other — handsome — dividends on the BJP. There had been whispers of an emerging fault line between the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in light of the BJP falling short of a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha and its drubbing in Uttar Pradesh. The RSS left nostone unturned when it came to assisting the BJP in Maharashtra and the result, as is often the case, has been a significant triumph for the party. This should help the BJP — in other words, Mr Modi? — smooth, for the time being, the ruffled feathers of the RSS. The resurrection of the BJP-RSS as a formidable electoral combination is likely to heal the fractures within.

Maharashtra will also help the BJP clip the wings of its allies. With the BJP bagging the highest number of seats, it would relentlessly push to be the dominant force within the Mahayuti and in Maharashtra. Consequently, the chief minister’s post and plum portfolios can no longer be kept out of the BJP’s reach. Even though intense parleys are to be expected for slices of the power pie, the factions of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party led by Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, respectively, would now have a dual battle on their hands. They need to guard against a pushback by the BJP to make them secondary forces — Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena are examples — while continuing to dine, as it were, with an ally with the heart of a competitor.

As for INDIA, the Opposition alliance, it has to stay content with the victory of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led bloc in Jharkhand. That the coalition has managed to tame incumbency as well as a vicious polarising campaign by the BJP in Jharkhand bodes well. But the devastating loss in Maharashtra is likely to reduce the triumph in Jharkhand into a pyrrhic victory. This is not idle speculation. The Congress, as is its wont, came up second best to the BJP in Maharashtra in direct contests; the legitimacy of the rumps of the NCP and Shiv Sena led by Mr Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray, respectively, is now under a cloud. Changes in equations within the INDIA bloc and within these two parties, in particular, cannot thus be ruled out. Together, these developments would dent the Opposition’s charge in national politics.