Congress’s Maharashtra game plan: How party is planning to avoid Haryana mistakes in next poll battleground

The Congress has sent out signals that it does not want to repeat the same “mistakes” that it made in Haryana. One of such indications came when the All India Congress Committee (AICC) recently appointed 11 senior observers across various regions in Maharashtra along with two senior coordinators for the state.

Congress insiders say the party does not want to take any chances in a state where it has a strong Dalit-Muslim vote base and where it performed well in the Lok Sabha polls. The Congress then got 13 seats in Maharashtra — the highest among all the contenders in the state — while the BJP and the Shiv Sena (UBT) won nine seats each.

“Our problems in Maharashtra may be different than Haryana because we do not have a tall leader like (Bhupinder) Hooda ji who was dealing with the campaign over there. But the issue of keeping allies happy is important while also remaining assertive over seat sharing,” said a senior Congress leader who has been given the responsibility to work in Maharashtra. His statement assumes significance as the Sena (UBT) was among the allies that said the Congress must be more “accommodating”.

Another Congress leader said the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s office is keeping a close watch on the party’s preparations for the Maharashtra polls.

“During meetings, it has been discussed that we cannot let things go the way they did in Haryana. In Maharashtra, the AICC wants to be more involved in managing the state leadership and especially the aspiring candidates,” said a senior leader.

Another leader, who has already begun campaign work in Maharashtra, said the party would follow an “objective method for ticket allocation”.

“We will not let tickets be decided by affiliation with top leaders like it happened in Haryana. The one and only criteria will be the winnability of a candidate. And those who can’t get tickets in the state will be managed by the top AICC leadership,” said the leader, adding that the party would make all attempts to ensure that those who are denied tickets do not turn rebels and contest as independent candidates.

In Haryana, rebel candidates who were denied party tickets and went on to contest as Independents impacted the Congress’s prospects adversely. The defeats of the party’s official candidates in several seats were also attributed to them as they ended up cutting their votes.

On Wednesday, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar — who are leaders of the Shiv Sena, BJP and NCP respectively — jointly presented a report card of their Mahayuti coalition government.

After the Lok Sabha polls, when the Mahayuti tally was 17 seats as against the MVA’s 30, the Shinde government announced a financial assistance scheme for women to consolidate the Mahayuti’s vote bank.

As a counter to this, the Congress is also looking to quickly launch its five guarantees and manifesto in the state. There is a feeling among the party top brass that its Haryana manifesto was released later than it should have been, with lesser time to take the party narrative to the people.

“The party is considering five guarantees for the Maharashtra people – where we will make certain promises to the electorate like cash payments to households, free bus travel for women, free 10 kg grains, cheaper power, and an unemployment allowance. We will also have the promise for caste census in our manifesto,” said an AICC leader.

A senior Congress leader said that Gandhi doesn’t want to make guarantees “practical”.

“There is some pressure from allies too about the guarantees, but Rahul ji wants the guarantees to be absolutely practical so the party doesn’t lose face in the long run. I think a middle ground will be reached over the guarantees,” said the leader, considered close to Gandhi.

The Congress’s guarantees had first helped the party taste success in the Himachal Pradesh elections in 2022. A similar template was then replicated in Telangana (2023) and Karnataka (2023) — both states where the party ended up winning.

On the issue of caste calculations, the Congress doesn’t want to repeat in Mahrashtra its Harana mistake – relying too much on one community (Jats) – which resulted in polarisation against the community and consolidation of other OBC and Dalit communities in favour of the BJP.

“We will focus our campaign on the Constitution and caste census. That worked for us in the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra and it will ensure a win for us once again,” said a Maharashtra Congress leader.

AICC secretary in charge of Maharashtra Kunal Chaudhary told The Indian Express that the elections in the state will be fought over “the ideology of Jyotirao Phule, Dr Ambedkar and Shahuji Maharaj as against the ideology of Manusmriti being followed by the BJP”.

“We are fighting these elections for Dalits, Backward Classes and those who have been marginalised,” he said.

Congress spokesperson Subharansh Kumar Rai said the biggest issue the Congress will rely on in the Maharashtra polls will be corruption and the “stolen mandate” by the Shinde government, referring to the leader’s June 2022 rebellion that split the Uddhav Thackeray-led undivided Shiv Sena.