Both Maharashtra and Haryana are heading into assembly elections and online surprises are many. For instance, for starters, neither BJP, nor Narendra Modi are on top online, in fact Raj Thackeray’s MNS and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena are ruling people’s minds, Google search trends reveal.
Starting from Maharashtra which has witnessed a breakup of decades old alliances in the past month, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leader Raj Thackeray emerges as the most popular leader online from Maharashtra leaving behind rival Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Devendra Fadnavis, president of Maharashtra state unit of BJP also led searches from the state although they lagged behind the Thackerayss. Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan and R.R Patil were also seen lagging behind in terms of online search popularity.
After serving two continuous terms in Haryana, opposition parties are trying hard to take advantage of Congress poor show in the Lok Sabha polls. Leader of the Indian National Lokdal (INLD) Om Prakash Chautala, emerged as the most searched leader in Haryana.
Gopal Kanda, an independent MLA from Sirsa who is moving into the assembly elections with his own political outfit, Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP) has interestingly emerged the second most searched political leader leaving behind Congress leader and Haryana Chief minister Bhupendra Singh Hooda. Although given his limited influence in Haryana it will be interesting to see how he fares in the assembly election results.
Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) chief Kuldeep Bishnoi who is aspiring to become chief minister stood at fourth position among the leading faces online in the battle for Haryana state assembly.
Even as all political parties boost confidence of party cadre?s projecting comfortable wins in the coming elections, it will be really interesting to note their performance as the Election commission of India declares the result on October 19, 2014.
In the biggest electoral test after the Lok Sabha battle, people across Haryana and Maharashtra will vote to elect new assemblies on October 15. A total 8.25 crore people in Maharashtra will vote at 90,403 polling stations; 1.61 crore will vote at 16,244 polling stations in Haryana.
