Sukanya Shantha 
Mumbai: The 2024 general election results delivered a very clear verdict. With 30 seats plus one (won by an independent candidate), the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) emerged the clear winner in the state. In contrast, the ruling Mahayuti alliance managed only 17 seats – a significant step back, although its losing margin was rather slim.
The MVA’s vote share in the general election was 43.71%, while the Mahayuti’s was 43.55%. The MVA secured a total of 25,015,819 votes, compared to the Mahayuti’s 24,812,627 votes.
But what ultimately matters is the number of seats won, and the Mahayuti’s performance in the state was among its poorest.
Between the general election and the state assembly election, the Mahayuti had only a few months to get its act together. A slew of populist schemes was announced, among the first and most popular being the Mukhya Mantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, which made women aged 21 to 65 with a family income of less than Rs. 2.5 lakh eligible for Rs 1,500 every month.
A testament to its success is the enrolment of over 23.4 million women under the scheme.
While the scheme was ambitious and its feasibility highly questionable, it did not face much pushback. The opposition found itself in a difficult position; although it was a clear cash handout, they couldn’t be seen questioning a scheme that directly benefited the masses. A few opposition leaders, including senior leader Sharad Pawar, labelled the scheme an “eyewash”, but they did not aggressively confront the Eknath Shinde-led government, which heavily promoted the initiative.
This flagship program announced by the chief minister has greatly helped Shinde consolidate his image in the state. Eager to be re-elected and return as chief minister with the people’s mandate, Shinde has not shied away from taking full credit for the scheme. His PR machinery has been working tirelessly to position him as an indomitable figure in state politics.
Another scheme, named the ‘Mukhya Mantri Yuva Karyaprashikshan Yojana’, was announced around the same time to provide a monthly stipend of Rs 6,000-10,000 to young men for six-month-long internships across various industries.
In every advertisement that appears in the newspapers, Shinde’s features alongside the prime minister’s. The deputy chief ministers, Devendra Fadnavis (BJP) and Ajit Pawar (Nationalist Congress Party), are merely addendums in Shinde’s publicity campaign.
Fadnavis, a two-time chief minister of the state, has been sidelined over the years and is no longer positioned as the chief ministerial candidate by his own party.
Sanjay Patil, a researcher from the University of Mumbai who closely studies Maharashtra’s politics and urban informality, notes that Shinde’s strategy of projecting himself as the face of Maharashtra’s politics works well within the BJP ecosystem.
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“Every scheme under this regime is prefixed by ‘prime minister’. So, Shinde using this model as an opportunity to promote the scheme as his own is not new in that sense.”
However, Patil points out that this strategy carries significant irritant value for his allies, without whose support Shinde wouldn’t have come to power or have the capacity to run these schemes. Ajit Pawar has also tried on many occasions to take credit for the schemes.
In May, just before Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to attend public meetings in Nashik district, a large number of onion farmers staged protests against him. To ensure his public appearance went smoothly, over 40 farmers, mostly protest leaders, were detained for a day.
In December of the previous year, the government had imposed a ban on exporting onions. Although the ban was eventually lifted, it was accompanied by a 40% export duty on onion shipments.
But with the assembly elections approaching, the government has scrapped the minimum export price mandate of $550 per metric tonne of onions and halved the 40% export duty imposed in May.
This was not the only rally in the state where the BJP leader faced open protest. Farmers from across the state expressed their discontent, a sentiment that was later reflected in the election results. In response, the state government announced various schemes, including a decision in the state budget session at the end of June to waive electricity bills for 4.4 million farmers in the state.
Patil notes that such decisions, especially those benefiting farmers, take time to yield results. “Farmers have been in distress for a long time. Most parts of the state experienced drought last year, but these measures to ease their conditions came only now, with the elections in mind.”
In mid-August, the state government decided to disburse Rs 4,194 crore to cotton and soybean farmers as ‘financial aid’ in light of damage to their crops in 2023 – in other words, over a year after the actual loss. This move followed Ajit Pawar’s admission that ‘agrarian distress was a major factor for the poll setback’.
In the state budget, Ajit Pawar, who also holds the finance portfolio, announced a 100% fee waiver (up from the existing 50%) for girls from the Other Backward Classes, the Economically Weaker Sections and the Socially and Economically Backward Classes in professional courses. This decision means that the state will now bear an additional burden of Rs 906.5 crore.
However, as Patil points out, the feasibility of these decisions is difficult for the opposition to debate, lest they appear “anti-people”.