Opinion Maharashtra is set to be a BJP party-society

The stronghold of Congress was such that even after its defeat in 1995, and a split in 1999, the party was not fully driven out of the political arena, as has happened in many other states. For 15 years, it went on to rule the state albeit with tough competition from the BJP-Shiv Sena. A major turn occurred in 2014, occasioned by the collapse of Congress nationally and the entry of Narendra Modi on the national scene. Maharashtra was swept off its feet in 2014: The BJP won 23 out of the 24 seats it contested. In the shadow of this overwhelming victory, the BJP also came close to a majority in the following assembly elections — for the first time since 1990, without the Shiv Sena: 122 seats with almost 28 per cent votes. The process of making allies redundant had begun.

Looking back at 2014, it needs to be noted that the shift in state politics commenced at that point. After 1990, for the first time, a party had come so close to a clear majority on its own. It was at that moment that Maharashtra almost reached the threshold of a new political phase — its second dominant party system under the BJP. The results of the 2024 Assembly poll have re-energised that process and taken off from where 2014 left the state.

The victory of the BJP, and more than that, the demoralising performance of its opponents, has ensured that the shift that was arrested or slowed down after 2014 will now take shape in a fast and furious manner.

When one party grows in dominance disproportionately, other Opposition parties are forced to search for possible coalitions. The MVA will need to remember this. Even if it gets dismantled, the politics of the Opposition will necessarily begin with cooperation among the opposition forces. In the case of the MVA, the problem is that there are no clearly demarcated sub-regions of their respective strength. So, every effort of coming together is fraught with the fear of losing their own turf in order to make room for others.

Secondly, it also means efforts by smaller parties to cross the threshold of viability. Most such parties are sectarian or localised or both. But their self-perception is that they are the real owners of the Opposition space. So, they will neither collaborate with the MVA nor be able to carve out their own political, regional or social space.

Three, we shall witness a three-fold dominance of the BJP. If one imagines three axes of power — political, economic and social — then the BJP’s dominance at the moment is the strongest on the political axis. But concurrently, in the economic sphere, the BJP has excellent equations with corporates and the middle classes, thanks to Modi. In the social realm, the risk of social strife on caste lines is there. The BJP will seek to neutralise it through cultural dominance of the Hindutva rhetoric. Thus, the BJP will aim at replicating the “Gujarat model” of overall dominance. That is where the BJP’s dominance will be different from the Congress dominance Maharashtra had seen earlier.

The templates adopted in Gujarat, MP and UP will be used in Maharashtra: Contemptuous treatment of the Opposition, full-throated repression of dissent and complete control of the social sphere. What scholars have described as the “party-society” has already been practised in Gujarat. Maharashtra will follow suit. The Public Safety Bill that the state government withdrew earlier, the monitoring of inter-religious marriages, stricter vigilance over free movement of young women, officially supported ghettoisation of Muslims, suppression of dissent and, above all, occupying the entire cultural space, are some of the directions in which this “party-society” model will evolve.

Already, much of the state’s rich cultural legacy has been hijacked and squeezed into the Hindutva frame — Shivaji Maharaj has been de-historicised to convert him into an instrument of masculine hatred of Muslims. The Warkari or Bhakti sampraday of the state had caved in long ago, but of late it has become an active force for cultural and political action legitimising Hindutva. The Ambedkar legacy has been tamed by the accommodation of Ambedkarite leaders or the inexplicable politics of some of them. During the past 10 years, the social, cultural and educational fields have been captured by the BJP. With the new-found governmental strength, that project will gain momentum.

But the most important hallmark of a party-society founded on one-party dominance is the inability of the Opposition to be imaginative. This was evidenced in their belated announcement of welfare schemes similar to the BJP. In days to come, this will be visible in their cynical but unfruitful pursuit of the Maratha reservation issue. Unless they bring out an alternative vision of social and economic policies, the Opposition will only be feeding into the BJP’s dominance.

Congress in Maharashtra has long ceased to have fighting spirit. Sharad Pawar’s politics mostly confines itself to using networks rather than ideas, although he alone has the ability to imagine a broader social and political coalition. Uddhav Thackeray, ever since he became the boss in the Shiv Sena, has neglected the task of redefining Marathi identity and more recently has failed to distinguish how his espousal of Hindu pride is different from the BJP’s Hindutva.

Such stagnation of action and thinking is surely the limitation of Maharashtra’s political actors but, more than that, it represents the overall effects of the politics of single-party dominance. These limitations make the BJP’s dominance stronger and open up multiple processes of shift and realignment in the politics of Maharashtra.

The writer, based at Pune, taught political science