1995: The first election in the state after the Mumbai riots

Shiv Sena: 73

BJP: 65
Congress: 80

The infamous riots in Mumbai after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent blasts led to a tense and polarised environment ahead of the 1995 elections.

Shiv Sena, which played a crucial role in the ‘Hindu retaliation’ to the blasts in the city, went on to expand its reach beyond the state capital and as far as the Konkan regions.

Manohar Joshi was placed as the Chief Minister by the Sena supremo Thackeray and Gopinath Munde from the BJP became the deputy chief minister. The first thing the government did was to change the name of India’s financial capital to Mumbai from its colonial name Bombay. The second decision was to scrap the Justice Srikishna Commission that was probing the Mumbai riots.