The outcome of the Karnataka Assembly elections is a wake-up call for the BJP in Maharashtra. It is likely to push the leadership to go back to the drawing board and reconsider its widely criticised Operation Lotus strategy.
With the Congress set to form the government in Karnataka, the BJP will be forced to confront two questions: Does the defeat of the Basavaraj Bommai government translate into the failure of Operation Lotus? And will Maharashtra meet the same fate as its neighbour in the 2024 Assembly elections?
Highly placed sources in the BJP said that the core committee of the Maharashtra BJP will hold a meeting in a couple of days to analyse the Karnataka outcome, along with lessons for the state. Along with the poll strategy, a drastic mid-term course correction is also on the party’s agenda.
“Every state Assembly election has its own dynamics; from local issues to leadership, everything plays an important role. Central and state leaders will analyse the results and whatever corrective measures are necessary will be taken by the top leadership. We cannot compare any two elections,” senior BJP leader and cabinet minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil said.
The BJP in Karnataka and Maharashtra have a lot in common.
In the 2018 Karnataka Assembly elections, the Congress and JD(S) coalition led by H D Kumaraswamy formed the government. The BJP, which was the single largest party, was relegated to the Opposition. Within a year, in 2019, the BJP through Operation Lotus brought down the Congress-JD(S) coalition after 15 Congress and two JD (S) MLAs resigned. Those who resigned contested in bypolls, making it possible for the BJP to cross the magic figure of 113 in the 224-member House in Karnataka.
The scenario in Maharashtra is strikingly similar. After the 2019 Assembly elections, the BJP, despite being the single largest party with 105 out of 288 MLAs, was forced to sit in Opposition after the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena (then undivided) joined hands. Under Maha Vikas Aghadi, Uddhav Thackeray became the CM.
After two-and-a-half years, the BJP hit back with Operation Lotus and engineered a split in the Shiv Sena. The rebellion led by Eknath Shinde yielded results. In June 2022, Shinde became chief minister and Devendra Fadnavis, the deputy chief minister.
“The Karnataka results clearly show that BJP’s Operation Lotus has been rejected by the people. The BJP’s ‘break and make’ government politics, which may have worked to get their party in power in states like Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, is proving detrimental,” senior Congress leader and former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said.
Stating that there are similarities in the way the governments were formed in Karnataka and Maharashtra through Operation Lotus, Chavan warns, “It is surely an alarm bell for the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition in Maharashtra.” Ignoring ethics and blatantly misusing central agencies to coerce opponents to retain power has become the BJP’s political pattern, which the people in Karnataka have rejected, he added.
It is not just the Opposition. BJP leaders, in private, are also showing signs of nervousness. A senior BJP functionary, requesting anonymity, said, “Operation Lotus returned us to power but getting Eknath Shinde on board as CM has boomeranged.”
Despite being the larger party, the BJP in Maharashtra took the decision to hand over the CM’s post to Shinde as a reward for splitting the Shiv Sena. Its strategists believed that the party’s grassroots Sainiks would move away from Uddhav Thackeray and join hands with the Shinde faction. But even after 11 months, this has not materialised.
The BJP’s strategy to project Shinde as a Maratha leader to counter the Congress-NCP in western Maharashtra has failed. Instead, NCP’s Sharad Pawar remains the unchallenged Maratha leader in the state.
“Irrespective of Karnataka results, the BJP central leadership has been periodically conducting constituency-wise reviews for every state including Maharashtra,” a BJP insider revealed. It is known that the party will have to pull up its socks to retain power in Maharashtra.
During his Mumbai visit in February, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had set a target of 45 seats for Lok Sabha and 200-plus for Assembly, a highly ambitious goal. The BJP has also undertaken a mammoth drive to reach each and every individual across 36 districts covering 355 talukas in Maharashtra. “Through 97,000 booths, we have set the target to every karyakarta to reach out to 10 families. With 105 seats, (25.75 per cent vote share), the BJP knows it cannot remain complacent,” a BJP poll manager said.
“Our realistic objective is to strive to enhance the vote share from 25.75 per cent to 35 per cent,” the manager added. A 10 per cent increase would easily help the BJP achieve its desired target of 145 seats. However, BJP poll managers privately expressed concern about the lack of coordination between the BJP and the Shiv Sena (Shinde) at ground zero. In the 2014 Assembly elections, the BJP had won 122 seats and its vote share was 27.18 per cent.
After the Karnataka polls, the central leadership is likely to turn its attention to Maharashtra. “Once Shinde and Fadnavis embark on campaigns together, it will percolate to the grassroots,” state BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said. “Coordination at the worker level is a must, and for that, we have to send a clear signal to the cadre,” he added.
A BJP insider admits, “Ideally, we would have liked to have Fadnavis as CM but any attempt at a change of guard would amount to betraying the Shinde Sena.”
With the 2024 polls on the horizon, the BJP, understandably, would like to avoid any political missteps and has reconciled to the status quo. It could be why Fadnavis has officially made it clear that Shinde will lead the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition in the 2024 polls, thus implying that there is no room for a third partner.
Congress leaders and workers celebrate at the party office as the party leads in early trends on the vote counting day of Karnataka Assembly polls, in Bengaluru, May 13, 2023. (PTI Photo) 
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