The results of the Assembly polls in Haryana and Maharashtra, and the by-polls to 51 Assembly seats across 17 states and two Lok Sabha constituencies, announced on Thursday, belied expectations of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sweep.
In less than 150 days since the BJP and its allies won by a landslide in the Lok Sabha polls, electorates in Maharashtra and Haryana looked beyond such national issues as the scrapping of Article 370, which were the BJP’s leitmotif for its election campaign, jolting the party out of complacence amid widespread concerns over the economic slowdown and rural distress.
The election