“It’s a Saffron Tsunami,” political experts across TV channels on the day the Assembly election votes were being counted erupted. After the voting across Maharashtra for the 2024 Assembly elections wrapped up on November 20, all eyes were on the counting day November 23 on which the results were to be realised. True to our ground report titled “Development vs appeasement reset the electoral equations”, the Maharashtra voters not only ‘did not disappoint’ but in fact ‘overwhelmed the ruling dispensation’ with their overt support.
Six months is a long period for any political buildup. If the BJP led NDA had suffered a serious setback in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, the comeback in the Assembly elections has been just as forceful and stunning. The consolidation of the OBC vote and pro-Hindutva vote has acted as a force multiplier.
Several Islamic organisations have given open calls to Muslim voters to back Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) candidates in any constituency. The MVA – a disparate coalition comprising the Congress party, Sharad Pawar faction of NCP, and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena – on the other hand, was attempting to divide the Hindu votes along caste lines.
The Organiser had reported that poll-bound Maharashtra was witnessing an intriguing voter sentiment akin to a wave as the date of the forthcoming Assembly polls neared. A call for Hindus to not be divided by castes or communities phrased as “Batenge Toh Katenge” – loosely translated as: “If divided, we perish” by the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and another by Prime Minister Narendra Modi phrased as “Ek Hai oh Safe Hai” – translated as “We are safer when we are united as one” seemed to be gaining resonance among voters. This call for Hindu votes to come together in the Assembly election campaigns in Maharashtra and Jharkhand found resonance in the former state despite the fact that the UP CM had first voiced it during a campaign rally in the latter.
The results on counting day stunned all. The Mahayuti (MY) alliance grabbed the largest portion of the pie. The BJP won 132, the Shiv Sena (under chief minister Eknath Shinde) won 57, the Ajit Pawar led NCP got 41. The MVA fared rather poorly, with only 20 seats to the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, a mere 16 to the Congress party, and a very poor 10 to the Sharad Pawar-led NCP. Samajwadi Party took two, and the remaining 10 went to independents and others.
Hindu Voter Consolidation vs Muslim Vote Jihad
The voters in Maharashtra have not shown this extreme leaning earlier. This result reflects the BJP’s best show in the state assembly polls yet and the worst on the Congress party’s electoral history in the most prosperous state of India. Do the results reflect the consolidation of the Hindu vote to counter the Vote Jihad by Muslim leaders?
Irfan Ali Pirzade, member of Maharashtra’s interfaith committee and the national convenor of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) Muslim Rashtriya Manch, says the Muslim vote has never shifted to the BJP. It has stayed behind either the Congress or any other party save for the BJP. According to Pirzade, even the Ladki Bahin (cash transfer scheme for women) scheme that brought financial benefits to all women (Hindu, Muslim, or otherwise) has cut no ice with women from the Muslim community. He blames the extremist ideology of certain Muslim leaders, such as Sajjad Nomani, who declared punitive action against those Muslims who did not vote for the MVA and benefited the MY instead. Pirzade says Nomani’s apology after the poll results is worthless as “Boond se gayee Haud se nahin aati!” – meaning you cannot reclaim respect after losing it once – an inference drawn from an anecdote pertaining to the fabled exchanges between the Mughal Emperor Akbar and his trusted aide Birbal. “They took all the financial benefits, but did not vote for the Mahayuti,” said Pirzade, referring to Muslim women.
Then what worked? “People saw how hollow the Congress claims about the Constitution of India being in peril were. People were also satisfied with the way the MY government delivered on the work front in the last two and a half years. Apart from that, the disillusionment with the Maratha reservation leader Manoj Jarange helped draw attention to the fact that neither the MVA nor the MY had anything on the issue in their poll manifesto. That means, all the poll planks that the Congress and MVA had utilised to garner votes in the Lok Sabha polls were now redundant,” Pirzade told the Organiser.
Varun Singh, a senior journalist who covers Maharashtra politics, highlights that while in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP struggled to counter the narrative of threat to the constitution and the pompous declaration of agenda to win “400 paar” seats, in the Maharashtra Assembly elections the same year, the partners in the MY coalition avoided making any controversial claims. “They showed cohesion, no infighting or friction within. The MVA meanwhile seemed to be struggling to keep their flock together. Also, the Congress could not gain women voters’ confidence despite declaring a more financially alluring Mahalakshmi Yojana to beat the Ladki Baheen scheme of MY as the forms and promises to similar effect made in the Lok Sabha polls had turned out to be duds,” Varun Singh said.
Varun Singh also credits the local leadership of the BJP and its workers, along with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) volunteers who went from home to home weeks before the election to ensure that voters’ names did not go missing from voter lists. Anomalies found were put on a remedial path quickly. On polling day, Hindu voters, as well as the MahaYuti members, ensured the maximum number of voters came out in time to vote. The lack of lethargy and refusal to submit to complacency helped, says Varun Singh.
The Modi-Fadnavis factor and the “Hindu Guilt Vote”
Senior journalist Dinesh Gune calls this consolidation of the Hindu vote as the “Hindu Guilt Vote”. So much changed in Maharashtra post 2024 General Elections to Assembly elections. “People of Maharashtra remembered that the shortfall of Lok Sabha seats from Maharashtra had cost Prime Minister Modi’s BJP the absolute majority that could have strengthened his hands in getting key bills or legislations passed. People recalled his crest-fallen face on June 4 when India’s Parliamentary votes were counted. They felt rather guilty for the BJP-led NDA just about scraping through. The Assembly polls for the people of Maharashtra were an opportunity to right that wrong, to reward Deputy Chief Minister (and former Chief Minister) Devendra Fadnavis for their good work,” says Dunesh Gune. To understand what Gune says, we must look at the Lok Sabha polls results.
The Maharashtra Lok Sabha numbers in 2024 Parliamentary polls compared to the previous one had shocked the BJP supporters. In Maharashtra in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress won 13, the BJP a mere 9, the Uddhav Thackeray Shiv Sena won 8, and the BJP’s ally Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena won 7, and NCP 1. This was quite a fall for the BJP, which was hoping to better its previous LS poll tally of 28 and ally SS tally of 15 (a sum of 43 out of 48 in the NDA kitty).
That is how the Maharashtra Assembly votes were overwhelmingly in the BJP’s favour, with 132 seats in the 288-member assembly to the BJP and 57 plus 41 to its alliance partners. That makes it 230 in all, well past the two-third majority.
Jharkhand, meanwhile, had no such correction to make. Chief Minister Hemant Soren-led JMM steered the INDI bloc to victory with 56 seats in the 81-member Jharkhand assembly, returning its incumbent state assembly government to power. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Jharkhand did not give any broken heart moments to the BJP-led NDA as it got 9 seats and the I.N.D.I Alliance got 5. This was not too much of a deviation from the 2019 Lok Sabha polls where the NDA had 12 and the UPA (Congress-led coalition) had won 2.
End of road for political heavyweights and dynasty politics?
This election saw the near decimation of the poll prospects of the electoral fortunes of parties led by patriarchs through prolonged or dynastic politics. Uddhav Thackeray had shown reluctance to allow the democratic nomination to party leadership and had clutched onto the helm of the Shiv Sena established by his late father, Balasaheb Thackeray. His son, Aaditya Thackeray, who has been elected to the Worli Assembly seat in this election, is the third generation of the Thackerays in politics, if not in the legislature. But the drubbing that the UBT Shiv Sena and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP faction makes one wonder if it sounds the death knell for dynastic politics, at least in Maharashtra.
Mrinalini Naniwadekar, Associate Editor, Sakal, says that to say so would be erroneous. “At least 73 of the 288 elected legislators in the Maharashtra Assembly 2024 are in some way or the other an extension of the political mileage that they have inherited by virtue of their family’s political legacy,” Naniwadekar says. She added that the thumping majority that the Maha Yuti got is due to the sentiment among the people that they had misjudged the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) and the active campaigning by party workers as well as right wing organisations who refused to fall for over-assumptions and realised the importance of strategic voting. “That ensured the churning of the voters who turned up at polling booths and voted,” she said.
Blame Game begins in Maha Vikas Aghadi
As we go to press, serious fissures are showing up in the forcibly stitched-up alliance of the MVA. The Congress’s “overconfidence” in Maharashtra and its “attitude” during seat-sharing talks hurt Maha Vikas Aghadi’s prospects, a senior leader of Shiv Sena (UBT) said about the embarrassing and disheartening rout. Ambadas Danve, Leader of the Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council, said that the Maha Vikas Aghadi should have projected Uddhav Thackeray as its Chief Minister face.
On the other hand, the Maha Yuti seems to be progressing towards the swearing in of the next government. Outgoing Chief Minister and leader of the Shiv Sena, Eknath Shinde, on Wednesday, stepped back and said he would accept Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision on the Chief Minister post – Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis being a strong contender for the top post.
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