assembly-elections

Updated: Oct 06, 2019 07:23 IST

For the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Maharashtra has always occupied a special place. It was here, in Mumbai (then Bombay), that the BJP was formed in 1980. And it is here, in Nagpur, that the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological fount, has been based since its founding in 1925.

Yet, the BJP’s own political quest for power in Maharashtra had always been unsuccessful. It had been a junior partner to the Shiv Sena in an alliance that came to power in the 1990s. But never had the party been able to install its own leader as the chief minister.

And that is why 2014 was such a significant breakthrough for the BJP. Coming soon after Narendra Modi’s spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP emerged as the single-largest party in the Maharashtra assembly. It went on to appoint Devendra Fadnavis - a young, Nagpur leader, a Brahman, in a state which had been dominated by other castes politically; and a man with a strong RSS background -- as CM.

Five years later, Fadnavis faces a re-election. The politics of the nation has changed with the continued hegemony of the BJP; the politics of the state has changed, with BJP consolidating its gains and establishing its status as the senior partner in the alliance with the Shiv Sena; and the Opposition - of Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party - faces its toughest election. The state votes on October 21.

National landscape

Elections to the Maharashtra assembly are happening in a particular national backdrop.

Modi has won his second term as PM. And he remains, by all accounts, the country’s most popular leader. The fact that BJP is in power at the Centre has enabled the party to bank on what Modi has been calling “double-engine” -- where having the same dispensation at both the central and state level would lead to greater coordination, more resources, and, therefore, more development. The argument resonated with the voters of Maharashtra in 2014, and could well do so again.

The BJP-led central government’s moves too have helped. Its perceived strong stance on terror and Pakistan, and its decision to effectively abrogate Article 370, reports suggest, seem to have wide popular backing. Party president Amit Shah, at a meeting in Mumbai, declared that Article 370 is an election issue and asked Congress to come up with its stance.

BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari said the party’s endeavour would be to retain the party’s vote share in the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra. “We have chalked out a plan to reach out to every voter and every household to ensure that they vote for us. We have planned the campaign in phases,” he added.

There is one other element of the national picture which has salience for Maharashtra - the paralysis in the Congress’s decision-making and its national projection. The party’s inability to communicate a strong counter to the BJP, its leadership crisis wherein it took months to find a replacement for former chief Rahul Gandhi, and its organisational weakness have had an impact on all states — including Maharashtra.

This national background is supplemented by a set of local factors, which appear to give the BJP an edge.

Local state of play

In five years, Fadnavis has emerged as a leader in his own right. While Modi was the face of the national campaign, the fact that BJP and Shiv Sena got 41 of the 48 seats in the Lok Sabha is also seen, partly, as an endorsement of Fadnavis. He has battled internal rivals, established a strong administrative grip, engineered large-scale defections from opposition parties to swell the ranks of the BJP in areas where the party had been weak, and despite the Shiv Sena’s consistent criticism, and set up a working relationship with Sena chief Uddhay Thackeray.

Ashish Chandorkar, a public policy analyst in Pune who has written a book on Fadnavis, said the CM turned on their head all the limitations he faced in politics.

“When he became the CM, several people thought that a Brahmin from Vidarbha will focus on caste realignment and ignore other parts of the state. Instead, as CM, Fadnavis completely shunned caste politics and focused on development. Traditionally, Maharashtra politics has been riddled with caste-led factionalism, something Fadnavis did not speak about at all in five years,” he said.

Chandorkar also argued that Fadnavis did not stick to the old alignments of regional politics. “He did not play the regional politics of pitting western Maharashtra, Vidarbha and Marathwada against each other,” he said.

And finally, Chandorkar said Fadnavis stayed away from the state’s cooperative institutions, traditionally a source of political power but also the source of political corruption. “This helped him push his reform agenda with no personal stakes in these problem-riddled institutions,” he added.

His real test, however, is now. Fadnavis is banking on central and state welfare schemes to be able to offset any economic hardship voters may have had to go through due to the economic slowdown.

The second local factor is the Shiv Sena. The party struggled for over a decade, with Bal Thackeray’s fading health and his eventual death; and with the quarrel between Uddhav and his cousin Raj Thackeray for supremacy and eventual formation of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena; and Uddhav’s inability to replicate his father’s popularity. The party has found it hard to accept its junior status to the BJP, but in the interests of political power, has reconciled itself to it - as is evident in the seat sharing arrangement for the assembly elections (The BJP and smaller allies are fighting 164 seats while the Sena is contesting 124 seats) .

For the Shiv Sena though, this election is particularly significant because it is the first time a member of the Thackeray family, Aditya, is contesting an election. He is expected to become the deputy CM, if the alliance wins.

The third local factor is the social coalition. The BJP had essentially banked on non-Maratha communities in the state’s landscape. But with the decision to grant additional reservations to Marathas (which the court upheld), the party hopes to make significant inroads into the community. The fact that this reservation was in addition to the existing pie, and did not cut into the share of others who availed it, makes BJP confident that the alliance can build an umbrella coalition.

And, fourth, the state of the local opposition constitutes the final piece of the political jigsaw in Maharashtra. The Congress and NCP have, more or less, become equal partners. The veteran NCP leader, Sharad Pawar, is fighting hard - but has had to deal with issues within his family; desertions from the party; and possible legal cases against family members. The Congress is facing deep internal factionalism, and the latest leader to express his discontent is the former Mumbai chief Sanjay Nirupam.

Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress incharge Maharashtra, said there was unrest among the voters over the BJP’s policies and governance. “Unemployment rate has gone up, investment has dropped, farmers are committing suicides. We are taking these issues to the people and getting good response from them,” he added.

Thirty-four years after it was set up in Mumbai, the BJP first tasted power with its own leader as CM in Maharashtra. Now, five years later, close to the four decades after its formation, the BJP is looking at Maharashtra to consolidate and expand its power. It starts with a strong edge.