There are 38 Assembly seats in Maharashtra with more than 20% Muslim population. In 20 of these, the BJP and its allies increased their vote shares during the Lok Sabha elections. Last month, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis blamed “vote jihad” for the Mahayuti alliance’s loss in 14 Lok Sabha constituencies, insinuating there was a “deliberate effort” to mobilise Muslim voters against the BJP and its allies during the parliamentary elections. However, polling data paints a different picture. According to the data, compared to the 2019 Assembly polls, the BJP and its allies have seen their vote shares grow during the Lok Sabha elections in more than half the 38 Assembly segments where Muslims comprise a significant chunk of the electorate. Of Maharashtra’s 288 Assembly seats, Muslims constitute at least 20% of the population in these 38 constituencies, including nine where they make up more than 40% of the population. At the state level, Maharashtra’s 1.3 crore Muslims account for 11.56% of the total 11.24 crore population, as per the 2011 Census. Of these 38 seats, the BJP and the Congress won 11 each in the 2019 state polls, with the undivided Shiv Sena close behind at nine seats, followed by the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) at three, and the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the AIMIM at two each. But despite the substantial Muslim population in these seats, only eight of the total 10 Muslim MLAs in the current Assembly were elected from these constituencies. Among the 10 constituencies with the highest Muslim populations, the BJP, the Congress, the Shiv Sena, and the SP each secured two seats, while the AIMIM and the NCP won one each in 2019 After the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won 30 of the state’s 48 parliamentary seats in the Lok Sabha elections this year, BJP leaders claimed that the party bore the brunt of Muslim consolidation, referring to it as “vote jihad”. However, the data reveals that the vote shares of the BJP and its allies increased in 20 of the 38 Assembly segments in the Lok Sabha elections. In Raver, which the Congress won in the 2019 Assembly polls, the BJP recorded its highest increase in vote share at 20.13 percentage points. The only constituencies where the Mahayuti parties’ vote shares declined by more than 10 percentage points were Mankhurd, Bhiwandi West, Byculla, Aurangabad Central, Akot, Parbhani, and Beed. Historically, the BJP, except for the 2014 Assembly elections when it contested all seats in Maharashtra, has paid little attention to the 38 Muslim-dominated constituencies. In 2019, it contested only 18 of these seats, leaving the remainder to its allies, including the undivided Shiv Sena.
