As the Mahayuti alliance registered a landslide in the Maharashtra Assembly elections on Saturday, bagging over 80% of the seats, several candidates under the shadow of central agency probes who had switched sides lost. These were candidates who, or their kin, changed sides in the last couple of years from the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance of the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (SP), and Shiv Sena (UBT) to the ruling coalition.

There were, in all, 14 “turncoat” candidates or their kin who moved from the MVA to the Mahayuti. While eight won, the rest lost the elections. Among the losers were three candidates from the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and three from the NCP led by Deputy CM Ajit Pawar.

The Shiv Sena split in 2022 after Shinde walked away with most of the party’s MLAs and joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The development led to the fall of the MVA government led by Uddhav Thackeray and the Shinde government took the reins of power. The following year, the NCP split after Ajit Pawar walked away with most of the party’s MLAs and joined the ruling alliance. A large number of the MLAs who switched sides at the time were facing probes by agencies such as the CBI, Enforcement Directorate (ED), or the Income-Tax Department.

As many as eight such turncoats or their kin who contested this time were from the NCP, five were from the Shiv Sena, and one from the BJP.

While former state minister Chhagan Bhujbal who was jailed in an ED case for two years and joined Ajit Pawar last year won from Yevle, his nephew Sameer who is also facing an ED probe lost from Nadgaon. Sameer quit the NCP just ahead of the Assembly polls and contested as an Independent.

Former state minister Nawab Malik who too sided with Ajit under the shadow of an ED probe, lost from Mankhurd-Shivaji Nagar. He gave up his traditional seat of Anushakti Nagar to his daughter Sana who defeated Fahad Ahmed — actor Swara Bhaskar’s husband — who contested on an NCP (SP) ticket.

The sympathy generated by the killing of NCP leader Baba Siddiqui did not come to the rescue of his son Zeeshan who contested on a party ticket. He lost to Shiv Sena (UBT) in Bandra East. Baba Siddiqui, a former Congress leader, joined the NCP this February. The ED had earlier investigated him in connection with an alleged SRA scam.

In August 2021, the ED conducted searches at multiple locations allegedly linked to Shiv Sena MP Bhavana Gawli in a 2020 money laundering case. In June 2022, when Shinde walked out of the Sena, Gawli sided with him and wrote to then CM Uddhav Thackeray to take a stand on Hindutva issues. Contesting from Risod on a Sena ticket, Gawali was relegated to the third position behind the Congress and an Independent.

Shiv Sena corporator Yashwant Jadhav and his MLA wife Yamini are under investigation by multiple agencies, including the ED. In June 2022, Yamini walked out of the MVA to join Shinde. She contested from Byculla on a Sena ticket but lost to the Sena (UBT).

Former Shiv Sena MP Anandrao Adsul, who was under ED probe in a Maharashtra cooperative case, switched to the Shinde faction. His son Abhijit unsuccessfully contested from Daryapur on a Sena ticket.

Shiv Sena candidates Pratap Sarnaik and Arjun Khotkar, who are both facing ED probes, however, won handsomely from their respective constituencies of Ovala-Majiwada and Jalna.

From the NCP, Ajit Pawar himself along with Dilip Walse Patil and Hasan Mushrif won from their respective constituencies of Baramati, Ambegaon, and Kagal.  All of them have faced central agency probes.