INDIA VOTES 2024: 2 groupings, 6 parties and Maha confusion in Maharashtra

Animesh Singh in Maharashtra

ThE Bharatiya Janata Party had on its own won 282 seats as the Narendra Modi wave swept the nation in 2014. Five years later, its tally rose to 303, with the Prime Minister playing the nationalism card close on the heels of the Pulwama terror attack and the subsequent Balakot airstrikes.

As the stage is set for commencement of the seven-phase 2024 Lok Sabha elections from April 19, Prime Minister Modi is relying on recounting the benefits of various developmental initiatives which his BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government has undertaken in the past 10 years, focusing mainly on women, the poor and the farmers.

With 48 seats, Maharashtra has emerged as a key state for the BJP in its ambitious and high-octane clarion call of ‘Iss baar 400 paar’, backed by the poll tagline of ‘Modi ki guarantee’.

The situation in the state, though, seems anything but conducive for the NDA or the ruling Mahayuti, as the BJP-Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde)-Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar) combine is known.

“The split in the Shiv Sena and the NCP, which resulted in the formation of four different parties, along with the presence of the Congress and the BJP, seems to be only proving the adage, ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’, right in the state,” says Anand Ambekar, a political observer.

With the Mahayuti on one side and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) — consisting of the Congress, NCP (Sharad Pawar) and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) — on the other, on the surface it looks like a straight contest between the two groupings. However, a closer look at the ground situation reveals that in actuality, there is a fight for supremacy among all the six parties of both the groupings for each and every seat.

“Apparently, there seems to be a degree of fear within the Mahayuti after the split it engineered in the Shiv Sena and NCP in the last two years, which reflects in the conduct of Lok Sabha elections in the state in five phases. This has never happened earlier. It also shows that all the parties are focused on taking up a few seats at a time,” says Devendra Gawande, a journalist attached with a leading Marathi daily.

He goes on to add that even the polls for the 10 seats of the Vidarbha region have been staggered into two phases.

While Nagpur, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli-Chimur, Ramtek and Bhandara-Gondiya will vote on April 19, the remaining five seats of Vidarbha — Wardha, Akola, Yavatmal-Washim, Amravati and Buldhana — will go to the polls in the second phase on April 26.

The concentration on a clutch of seats at a time is happening even as ticket aspirants from all the six parties have begun party hopping, unhappy at being overlooked. This, says Ambekar, has led to a messy and confusing state of affairs in Maharashtra.

To cite some examples from the five seats which will go to polls on April 19, in Ramtek, the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) has fielded former Congress MLA Raju Parwe as its candidate. In Gadchiroli, Congress’ Namdev Usendi, who had lost the previous two Lok Sabha polls to BJP’s Ashok Nete, joined the BJP after the party chose a new face, Namdev Kirsan, as its candidate.

Both the groupings are also involved in tense negotiations over seat sharing.

The Mahayuti is yet to sort out differences over 11 seats in the state, and the MVA is locked in bitter negotiations to break the deadlock on five seats.

As both the alliances are adopting a ‘one step at a time’ approach, the people of the state seem quite vocal about the prevailing political scenario.

With five seats in the Vidarbha region set for polls on April 19, issues of unemployment, lack of industrial development, poor rail connectivity, farmers’ resentment over high input costs and the absence of irrigation projects are going to play a significant role in deciding the fate of both the Congress and the BJP candidates, which are the dominant parties here.

“The BJP’s strategy of fighting the elections relying on Modi and his guarantees could face an uphill task in Vidarbha and even in the entire state, as there is visible unhappiness among the people for what the BJP did with the Shiv Sena and NCP (the split). So, the BJP’s strategy of candidates seeking votes in the Prime Minister’s name might actually prove counterproductive. This is a predicament the Mahayuti faces,” feels Ambekar.

On the other hand, there is a sympathy factor towards Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray, which is likely to come into play here.

Vidarbha covers 10 Lok Sabha and 62 Assembly seats of Maharashtra. Once a bastion of the Congress, the party is aiming to make a comeback in the region.

Situated in eastern Maharashtra, Vidarbha, for a long time, faced the ignominy of farmers’ suicides due to poor rainfall. Cotton, oranges, sunflower and tur are some of the major crops of the region.

Known for its extreme summers, the temperature is already touching 42 degrees Celsius. By the time polling for the first two phases is held on April 19 and 26, temperatures are likely to cross 45 degrees. They normally go up to 48 degrees here.

The lack of industries, unemployment and negligible incentives for rain-fed agriculture have led to farm distress in the region. Chandrapur and Gadchiroli districts in the region were witness to Naxal activity till recently.

Nagpur, from where Union Minister Nitin Gadkari is aiming to score a hat-trick, is also the second capital of Maharashtra and till 1957 was the capital of Central Provinces. The winter session of the Maharashtra Assembly is held in Nagpur.

State’s Forest Minister Sudhir Mungatiwar of the BJP is contesting a Lok Sabha poll after more than two decades from Chandrapur. This was the only seat which the Congress had managed to win in the state in 2019. The lone Congress MP, Suresh Dhanorkar, passed away in May last year and now his wife Pratibha Dhanorkar is contesting against Mungatiwar.

The Kunbi community, one of the most dominant in the state, comes under the OBC category. Maharashtra also has a sizeable section of SCs, who have been loyal supporters of the Congress. However, in the last 10 years, the Teli and Kunbi communities have shifted their loyalties to the BJP, says Gawande. “Still, it’s not going to be a cakewalk for the Mahayuti as there is no wave for the BJP in Maharashtra and grassroots issues are more important in the state,” he adds.

“Farmers unhappy over the lack of incentives, the vanishing cotton industry and poor industrial development are issues that continue to rankle this region and will definitely play on the minds of people during elections,” says farmer leader Vijay Javandhiya.

For both the groupings, a sound showing is important in Maharashtra, which has the second highest number of Lok Sabha seats after Uttar Pradesh. For the BJP, turning the unrest among voters in its favour is imperative to realise its 400-plus dream.