© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
“You never know, the BJP could make it in Maharashtra also,” said the director of a Mumbai-based finance company. “After all, the Congress was all set to win in Haryana, but you can never tell what will happen with the Congress at the last minute.”
An activist who works in the villages of Satara district in Western Maharashtra summed up the situation similarly: “The Ladki Bahin Yojana has made a difference, with money reaching women – Rs 4,500 has reached most, with many having received even Rs 7,500… Iss se MVA ka asar kuchch kam hua hai, par aisa nahin ki scene poora badal gaya hai (It is true that the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s impact has been hit, but it’s not as if the whole situation has changed).”
Both the persons I have quoted were making the same point – that the poll scenario in Maharashtra is unclear, uncertain, and too close to call.
There was a sympathy factor at work for the MVA in the Lok Sabha polls (after the way the BJP had split the Shiv Sena and NCP). It took the MVA tally to 30 out of 48 seats in Maharashtra, coming as a shock to the BJP. Will the sympathy for the MVA continue unabated in the Assembly polls, now that people have already given an expression to it? That question hangs out there – unanswered.
All eyes are on Maharashtra today, due to go to the polls on November 20. Maharashtra is important not only because it is the country’s second largest state. Along with Uttar Pradesh, it was responsible for robbing the BJP of a clear majority in the recently held Lok Sabha elections. Being the country’s commercial hub, its access to finance adds to its political clout. Today its import also lies in the timing of the Assembly elections. Their outcome will enable the winning side to seize the political initiative nationally.
Little Haryana became instrumental in giving new heart to an otherwise demoralised BJP, which had lost steam after the Lok Sabha polls. It broke the momentum of the Congress’s 99-member Lok Sabha victory, which had enabled the grand old party to act as if it had won the game. But if the MVA wrests Maharashtra from the BJP-led Mahayuti, Haryana would be forgotten very quickly.
Though no two states are the same, and Assembly elections are fought essentially on local issues, yet the “H” factor will influence the poll strategy of both sides in Maharashtra. It has already enthused a down and out BJP cadre, invigorating them with the feeling, “Hum haari hui baazi bhi jeet sakte hain (We can win even a losing battle)”.
Even the body language of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to his colleagues, has become visibly different after the “H” victory. It has toughened the BJP’s bargaining power vis-a-vis its two allies, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-headed NCP. At one of the seat-sharing meetings held with Shinde, Ajit Pawar, and the BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis, Home Minister Amit Shah was reported to have told Shinde words to the effect, “We have sacrificed a lot to make you Chief Minister. Now you too should sacrifice (to leave more seats for the BJP).”
The RSS, headquartered in Nagpur, has already started to work proactively for the BJP in Maharashtra, as it did in Haryana (after holding itself back in the Lok Sabha elections). There have been many meetings between the Sangh leaders and the BJP brass to address the RSS’s reservations – articulated by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat — about the BJP leadership’s style of functioning. The RSS hold-back hurt the party in states like Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The BJP and RSS have yet to reveal their “choice by consensus” for the next BJP president, about which extensive discussions have taken place.
The recent RSS-BJP parleys have also strengthened Fadnavis’s position in the BJP, and he is being increasingly seen as the party’s best bet today, even as the Mahayuti will fight the election under the stewardship of CM Shinde. Fadnavis was downgraded by the high command to accept Deputy CMship when Shinde was made CM in 2022. After the recent Lok Sabha polls, there was a buzz that he might be moved to Delhi.
The BJP will also push for a greater consolidation of the OBCs (Malis, Dhangarhs, Vanjaris) in its favour – as it did in Haryana, with the Jat versus non-Jat polarisation taking the party to an unexpected victory. In Maharashtra, the Maratha-OBC divide has sharpened after the Maratha agitation for reservations, and the MVA calculates this divide will benefit the alliance.
The BJP, on the other hand, hopes that both its allies Shinde and Ajit Pawar, who are Marathas, will pull in some Maratha votes. Incidentally the two leaders have not really been attacked by Manoj Jarange Patil, who is spearheading the agitation for reservation for the Marathas. He has concentrated his fire instead against Fadnavis (a Brahmin) for obstructing Maratha reservation and asked Marathas to vote for one of their own but not for the BJP.
Eknath Shinde has firmed up his leadership after the Lok Sabha polls; he had a better strike rate than the others. He has been on a sop-announcing spree, and projected himself as the author of the popular Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana (giving Rs 1,500 per month to women between 18-60) – expected to be the game changer for the Mahayuti, as it was for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh.
The BJP may also play the ‘Independents’ card in Maharashtra, as it did in Haryana and in J&K. There were 17 seats where the Congress lost because of Independents (some of them were Congress rebels) in Haryana. In J&K too, a large number of Independents were in the fray, but did not cut ice against the National Conference. In Maharashtra, the game may be played by both sides; it has been the hallmark of Sharad Pawar’s politics for four decades and more.
Come now to the MVA. What lessons has the Congress learnt from its defeat in Haryana? Not to put all its eggs in one basket, and project one leader as it did in Haryana (backing Bhupinder Singh Hooda)? In Maharashtra, it has decided to rely on its satraps, strong in their respective regions in the state.
Even as it garners a sizeable chunk of the Maratha vote, the challenge for the MVA is also to keep the Dalits by its side and not have them drift back to the BJP (as happened in Haryana). The Maratha-Muslim-Mahar/Buddhist combination was a winner in the just held Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP on the other hand will try and wean over the smaller groups amongst the SCs ( like the Matangs who have demanded their due share in reservations) with the Supreme Court allowing “sub-classification” of castes within SC/ST quotas which will favour the smaller groups.
On the face of it, there is no grand narrative discernible in this election in Maharashtra. Yet look below the surface and there is a sentiment there – a sub-nationalistic emotion involving Marathi/Maratha/Maharashtrian pride. It manifested itself during the Maratha agitation for reservations, or when people hit the streets after the sexual assault against school children in Badlapur or when a badly constructed statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji collapsed in Sindhudurg district. Or the growing angst many feel at big projects being transferred to Gujarat at the expense of Maharashtra.
Many eyes are on the 84-year-old Sharad Pawar. As the tallest and most experienced leader in the MVA – and in Maharashtra – with his extensive knowledge of every constituency, its caste matrix, familiarity with its leaders, his word is taken seriously by Uddhav Thackeray and Rahul Gandhi, and not ignored by other Congress leaders. This enabled him to get the better of his nephew Ajit Pawar in the Lok Sabha elections. Could this goodwill and sympathy and the hard nosed political strategy for which he is known make him an X factor in this election?
In the Lok Sabha polls, it was Uddhav Thackeray who had generated greater sympathy. This time round, it is Pawar who is being hailed as the “84 year old young man… who won’t stop until he puts Maharashtra on the right path”.
Many wait to see if he will come up with a trump card, as the campaign gets underway, to turn the tables in the MVA’s favour?
