Why Marathwada holds the key in Maharashtra battle: Caste faultlines to development pitch

Since the beginning of the Maratha quota agitation in 2023, the ruling Shiv Sena chief and Chief Minister, Eknath Shinde — who is Maratha himself — has been treading carefully on the demands for Marathas’ inclusion in the OBC category.

In September 2023, Shinde travelled to the Antarwali-Sarati village in Marathwada’s Jalna district to meet activist Manoj Jarange-Patil — who has been spearheading an agitation seeking Maratha reservation under the Kunbi (OBC) category – to urge him to end his fast.

According to the State Backward Commission, Marathas account for 28% of the state’s population.

Following the Maratha quota stir, the Maharashtra Assembly in February passed a new law to give 10% separate reservation to the community. The Mahayuti alliance — comprising the Shiv Sena, the BJP, and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — had hoped this outreach would give them an edge in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

This however did not pan out that way, with Patil and protesters continuing to demand the Maratha quota under the OBC category. The Mahayuti alliance ended up losing seven of the eight Lok Sabha seats in the region. The Congress won three seats (Latur, Jalna and Nanded), while the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) also won three seats (Dharashiv, Parbhani and Hingoli). The NCP (SP) led by Sharad Pawar won Beed, with the Shinde

Sena getting just the Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar seat.

Crowded battleground

The Marathwada region comprises eight districts: Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar (earlier Aurangabad), Beed, Hingoli, Jalna, Latur, Nanded, Parbhani and Dharashiv (earlier Osmanabad).

Four CMs of Maharashtra — the Congress’s Shivajirao Patil-Nilangekar, Shankarrao Chavan, Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashok Chavan (now with the BJP) — are from the region. It was a Congress stronghold, but the party’s influence started waning by the 70s.

Then CM Sharad Pawar’s proposal in the 1970s to rename the Marathwada University as Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar University saw protests and riots. The Shiv Sena, then led by its founder late Bal Thackeray, managed to create a base in Marathwada and brought some Maratha leaders into its fold.

In the 1990s, when the Ram Temple demand gained momentum, the BJP made inroads into the region. The Shiv Sena, which took a Hindutva turn, strengthened its base.

In the late 2000s, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Musilimeen (AIMIM) — a Hyderabad-based party —- also started making inroads in Marathwada. The region, which is said to have an estimated 15% Muslim population, was part of the erstwhile Nizam state of Hyderabad and continues to share a cultural affinity with Hyderabad. With a focus on the Muslim-dominated areas, the AIMIM caused further erosion in the Congress base in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar and Nanded districts.

The Congress slowly lost its political dominance in the region, its influence being limited to Latur, the home district of Vilasrao Deshmukh and Nanded, the home district of Ashok Chavan. In the 2019 Assembly polls, the BJP and the undivided Sena together won 28 seats, while the Congress and NCP won 8 seats each. Two seats went to others. In 2019, the AIMIM won its first Lok Sabha election in Maharashtra when its candidate Imtiyaz Jaleel won from Aurangabad seat, ending three successive terms of the Sena MP there.

Aftermath of Maratha stir

Maharashtra politics has seen an upheaval since 2019, marked with the splits in the Sena and the NCP. Adding to this has been the heat generated by the Maratha quota agitation. These factors will play a key role in the region in the coming elections.

The importance of the Maratha vote is evident: Seven out of eight MPs from Marathwada belong to the Maratha community. The other seat, Latur, is a Scheduled Caste- reserved seat.

The Lok Sabha polls is also a pointer to how caste politics would play a role in the Assembly polls in the wake of the Maratha agitation.

In Beed and Parbhani, for example, the polarisation and division of Maratha, Muslim and Dalit votes led to the defeat of the Mahayuti’s OBC candidates Pankaja Munde and Mahadev Jankar respectively. Similarly, Shinde Sena’s Maratha candidate Sandipan Bhumare won from Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar against Uddhav Sena’s OBC face Chandrakant Khaire.

Jarange-Patil has already appealed to Marathas to “vote 100% in this election and defeat whoever is opposing our demand for OBC status”.

Alongside this, the reconfigurations following the Sena and NCP splits will play a huge role.

Despite her defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP’s prominent Vanjari face Pankaja Munde as well as her cousin, the NCP’s Dhananjay Munde, are likely to be among key faces in the Assembly polls, especially in Beed district.

With Ashok Chavan shifting to the BJP from Congress, Amit Deshmukh from Latur has emerged as the Congress’s face in Marathwada. With the Congress winning three LS seats, he is being tasked to lead the party to a bigger victory in the region.

Despite the split in the Sena, Uddhav Thackeray has managed to retain his upper hand by winning three Lok Sabha seats of the four it contested. His campaign is being built on emotional appeal to its voters against the BJP, who he has accused of splitting the Sena.

And then there are the developmental challenges in the region. A drought-prone region, Marathwada was under the Hyderabad Nizam rule and was integrated into India 13 months after Independence on September 17, 1948. Even today, the region lacks irrigation and infrastructural facilities. About 65% of its population here is dependent on farming activities. In 2023, over 2,851 farmers in Maharashtra died by suicide, 1,088 of whom were from Marathwada.

All the contenders in the region are also expected to pitch for development. How this would play out remains to be seen.