Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing his toughest battle in Maharashtra soon after the BJP and its allies met their Waterloo in the Lok Sabha polls there.
Talk of credibility, which catapulted the BJP to the top spot in 2014, as it was riding the Modi wave, is once again an issue here ahead of the polls.
Now, there are questions galore before Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah as to how to retain power in Mumbai. The city of dreams has been changing too.
It would not be wrong to say that the Bombay puzzle has left the BJP bewildered, as neither the Modi card nor Hindutva has worked in the parliament polls, despite unprecedented campaigning by the prime minister. Unlike its detractors, resources were never the problem for the ruling party.
The ‘Ladki Bahin’ scheme on the lines of Madhya Pradesh’s ‘Ladli Bahena’ scheme gives away Modi-Shah’s nervousness. It is sweet revenge for Shivraj Singh Chouhan that his pet scheme is being followed in a state neighbouring Madhya Pradesh by those who rose on the Gujarat model.
It also signals that all is not well in the premier state. “Bada ghar, pokal vasa”, goes an adage in Marathi, meaning that a house might look imposing from the outside, but is in a decaying state on the inside – in other words, that it is hollow.
Whether such “rewadis” at election time will lead to a change of heart for the fairer sex needs to be seen. It must be admitted that the scheme has got a tremendous response. But will it lead to a change in the narrative for those who project themselves to be the ‘victims of a fake narrative’?
Besides, one has to see how the Maha Vikas Aghadi will respond to it through its manifesto. One thing is clear – such populist schemes will further derail the economy of the premier state, no matter which side brings it.
The BJP looks like a panicky student unprepared for the exam who relies more on the guide than the textbook. The aim is not to come out with flying colours, but to ensure that one is at least in the ‘pass’ category.
Also read: In-Fighting Takes Centre-Stage in Maharashtra’s Political Landscape
The turbulence within is reflected by the fact that the BJP is witnessing, for the first time in the past decade, ‘outgoing’ leaders rather than hordes of ‘incoming’ ones. This was unthinkable a few months ago. The problems and issues that were brushed under the carpet have started suddenly surfacing.
Former Union minister Suryakanta Patil is back with Sharad Pawar’s NCP, while former minister Madhav Kinhalkar, once a close associate of the Maratha strongman, announced his disassociation from the BJP. Both hail from the Marathwada region where the party drew a blank in the Lok Sabha polls.
Mahayuti’s uneasiness around the Maratha reservation issue
But that is just one problem. Manoj Jarange-Patil, who has become the voice of the Maratha reservation issue, is again on the warpath.
His march, titled the ‘peace march’, is causing much unease in the ruling circles, as the dominant community is eating out of Jarange-Patil’s hand. There has been no quick-fix solution to the vexed issue.
Members of the ruling Mahayuti caused disruption in both houses of the Maharashtra legislature this week. It was to force the opposition to make their stand clear on the issue of Maratha reservation and the OBC quota issue.
But the move was reflective of the growing unease in the BJP and its allies in the ticklish matter when the opposition is playing it cool.
The OBCs, which have been systematically cultivated by the BJP for long, are also restless, as they feel the Marathas are infringing on their share of the quota.
BJP workers unhappy over great influx of leaders
For the BJP, there is also a problem within, as Modi-Shah has ridden roughshod over local partymen when the going was good. Devendra Fadnavis has remained their pointsman and he was bound to become controversial.
The ordinary BJP worker has not been happy over the ‘incoming’ hordes that have led to the party changing beyond recognition. The party with a difference during the Vajpayee-Advani times has long disappeared.
Mumbai is the city where the BJP was born in 1980 after the disintegration of the Janata Party, of which the erstwhile Jana Sangh was the most organised member. During the times of Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde, all important state decisions, especially the selection of candidates, were taken at the local level and were just formally sent to New Delhi for the announcements. Now, the Maharashtra BJP is guided by New Delhi to the maximum extent possible. No one now knows who will get the ticket.
The legislative council election result is a wake-up call to the Maha Vikas Aghadi not to take things for granted after the Lok Sabha polls. Photo: Screenshot from X/@ShivSenaUBT_.
The bringing in of Ajit Pawar as deputy CM exactly a year ago by splitting Sharad Pawar’s NCP has become the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back. A couple of days before that, the PM while addressing an election rally in Madhya Pradesh had targeted Ajit for being allegedly responsible for corruption to the tune of Rs 70,000 crore.
Ajit’s induction has come under attack from the RSS too, and there have been rumblings within the BJP over the decision.
MVA upbeat after general election result but cannot take it for granted
As the upcoming assembly polls are seen as an extension of the Lok Sabha polls, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi is upbeat. The Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar’s NCP and the Congress are the partners of the Aghadi. They are bound by the anti-Modi glue in the wake of the splits in the Shiv Sena and later in the NCP.
While the BJP had sought to project the Lok Sabha battle in the state as one between the PM and Rahul Gandhi, on the ground level it was Uddhav and Sharad Pawar who took on the BJP led by Modi.
Octogenarian Sharad Pawar has become a possessed man after the BJP did everything in the Lok Sabha polls to demolish his bastion of Baramati, where his daughter Supriya Sule was contesting. The BJP had made the contest a prestige issue and its failure to drive a wedge there is bound to boomerang in the assembly polls.
The Maratha strongman is the anchor of the opposition alliance, and his good rapport with Uddhav on the one hand and Rahul on the other is going to be challenging for the ruling alliance. Pawar also has a score to settle against his nephew and is doing everything possible, subtly and not so subtly, to damage NCP Ajit.
Modi-Shah has a ticklish task on hand to decide on the issue of the chief ministerial candidate. The assembly polls are being fought with Eknath Shinde as the CM.
The prime minister’s more than subtle message to Uddhav Thackeray after the Lok Sabha, polls suggesting ‘let bygones be bygones’, is in a way an admission that the BJP’s strategy in Maharashtra under the guidance of Modi-Shah has faltered.
Uddhav, whose party was the oldest ideological ally of the BJP, feels more than comfortable with the Congress and Sharad Pawar.
How Modi responds to the multiple mutinies in the next few weeks will decide which way the winds will blow for the BJP and its allies. Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis’s assertion that the Mahayuti was just 25 lakh votes short of the Aghadi in the Lok Sabha polls, and that greater efforts in 200 seats would change the scenario in the assembly polls, looks more like a morale booster at present.
But the legislative council election result is a wake-up call to the Maha Vikas Aghadi not to take things for granted after the Lok Sabha polls. It also shows that the Fadnavis-Shinde-Ajit Pawar trio will give a tougher fight in the assembly polls. The good thing for the Aghadi is that only MLAs elected the MLCs. In a way, it was an in-house election.
Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari are New Delhi-based journalists.
