Heads have started rolling in Maharashtra after the Opposition’s Maha Vikas Aghadi took a massive drubbing in the Assembly polls results declared Saturday. State Congress chief Nana Patole has stepped down after the main Opposition party won just 16 out of the 103 seats it contested. Mr Patole barely scraped through in Sakoli with a margin of just 208 votes.

Mr Patole, a former MP, took charge of Maharashtra Congress in 2021 when he replaced Balasaheb Thorat. Under his leadership, the Congress posted a stunning performance in the Lok Sabha election earlier this year, winning 13 out of 17 seats it contested. Scoring the highest among all Maha Vikas Aghadi allies, the Congress under Mr Patole bargained hard during seat-sharing talks ahead of the Assembly election. This led to friction between Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharad Pawar). At one point, there were reports that Team Thackeray had refused to hold seat-sharing talks if Mr Patole was involved.

Even two days before election results, Mr Patole’s claim that the Maha Vikas Aghadi government formed after the election would be led by the Congress irked Team Thackeray leader Sanjay Raut, who said he would not accept this.

The results, however, showed the Maha Vikas Aghadi collapsing below the 50 mark as the BJP-led Mahayuti posted a mammoth score of 232. The Congress posted its worst-ever show in Maharashtra election, its tally dropping from 44 in the last election to 16 this time.

Earlier, the Congress described the Maharashtra election results as “unexpected” and “inexplicable”. Addressing the media, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, “There can be no two ways about it that in a targeted manner, the level-playing field, a phrase that the Election Commission often uses, was disturbed. The election results are unexpected, very surprising and inexplicable.” He said the party would analyse its performance and the factors behind it.