BJP faces multiple conundrums in Maharashtra, with little wiggle room left

At the review of the BJP’s dismal performance in Maharashtra in the recent Lok Sabha polls, held on June 18 in New Delhi, the top brass of both the national and State units of the party had few answers to share, despite the Assembly polls being just a few months away.

According to sources present at the meeting, seat-wise details, especially of losses in Vidarbha, Marathwada and Mumbai-Konkan, were gone into, micro data exchanged but there are fundamentally three big narrative conundrums that bedevil the party in that State.

OBC vote

Manoj Jarange Patil’s agitation for the Maratha reservation and the way Chief Minister Eknath Shinde (himself a Maratha) dealt with it, has prompted a backlash among the OBC community, a dangerous sign for the BJP. Since the 1980s, the BJP has been steadily working on the OBC vote via the “MaDhaV” combination or the Malis, Dhangar and Vanjari communities.

The grant of Maratha reservation, specifically granting OBC kunbi certificates to Marathas, the violence that the agitation engendered in Marathwada and a perceived lack of voice for the OBCs despite the BJP’s dominant role in the Mahayuthi-NDA government in the State led to OBCs feeling upset with the BJP. Losses suffered in Marathwada, where Mr. Jarange Patil’s agitation was particularly strong, saw the BJP lose all four of the seats it contested in that area (Marathwada is said to have eight Lok Sabha seats). The party lost such previously “safe” seats as Jalna and Beed as well. While losses in Vidarbha were attributed to the perception that the BJP, voted back to power would end reservation, it is the OBC backlash which is being blamed for the BJP’s losses in Marathwada.

The BJP’s statement on June 19, that there was no discussion on who would be the Mahayuthi’s chief ministerial candidate going into the Assembly polls in Maharashtra is a pointer that the BJP is anxious about its traditional vote bank slipping away.

State of the alliance

The Lok Sabha results also raised questions over the state of the Mahayuthi alliance. While the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena won seven Lok Sabha seats compared to the BJP’s nine, the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) posted only one seat. This raises a question about the complementarity of vote banks, especially after reports emerged that the RSS, the ideological mothership of the BJP, had grave reservations about the tie-up with the NCP.

It was conveyed that the Opposition’s campaign against the BJP as a “washing machine” or a party where joining would allow all taints of corruption to be washed away, was solidified by such opportunistic alliances. BJP and RSS cadre, whose political work in Maharashtra till now had been defined by an anti-NCP-Congress outlook, found it difficult to hit the streets in campaigning for that party. While the Shiv Sena under Mr. Shinde is still an organic alliance for the BJP on the issue of Hindutva, it is with the NCP that the party struggles on complementarity, a conundrum that will carry on into the Assembly polls.

The puzzle of Mumbai

The Mumbai area has 36 Assembly seats and is crucial in the Assembly polls as a chunk of seats from here can make the difference between forming a government in the State and sitting it out. The split in the Shiv Sena and the NCP will have its own implications as far as Mumbai is concerned, with the Shiv Sena (UBT) winning three seats on its own out of the six in the city, the silver lining for the Mahayuthi being that out of a total of 12 Lok Sabha seats in the Mumbai-Konkan belt, it won seven. This has put the spotlight on the fact that the Shiv Sena (UBT) with its additional votes of minorities, along with its traditional Marathi speakers’ vote bank is a formidable opponent. The BJP will have to work hard to corner both the Marathi-speaking people and Hindutva vote bank and make it count too.

The initial review held in New Delhi on June 18 is a start but with very little time left, the lessons from the Lok Sabha polls need to be applied in a hurry, with less headroom available than before.