The Maha Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA’s) performance in Maharashtra has elicited both disbelief and outrage amongst progressive forces, who are now focused on a forensic audit of this shock loss. Multiple theories have been proffered — including the possibility of EVM hacking/changing, the targeted deletion of MVA voters (from the Lok Sabha poll) and addition of bogus voters (between 2019-24, there was an increase of 37 lakh voters in Maharashtra. Yet in just five months after Lok Sabha polls, 47 lakh extra voters were added) etc.
Efforts are being made to pursue these to the logical end, by both political and non-political forces. These exercises are designed to thwart a repeat of any skulduggery in Delhi, Bihar, Assam and other elections going forward. Without discounting serious allegations (which raise profound questions about the integrity of the electoral process), it would be equally expedient to refocus our energies on the imminent local body polls in Maharashtra. Many would promptly dismiss this as a localised concern, not worthy of national attention. That would be a historic mistake.
It is not an exaggeration to say that today Maharashtra is in the same place as Gujarat was in 2003. If the MVA doesn’t win a substantial number of the 27 corporations, 34 zilla panchayats, 351 panchayat samitis, 129 nagar panchayats and 27,839 panchayats (whose cumulative budget is close to ten lakh crores), it would be extremely difficult to dislodge the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) from one of the most powerful and richest states of India. This would be electorally, culturally and financially catastrophic, and would firmly cement a saffron-epicentre in India (along with Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh).
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It is no coincidence that the BJP is according these polls the same importance as it did in the 2020 Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation polls (when almost every national and state leader campaigned in Hyderabad, partly to influence other local body polls). Given Maharashtra still boasts of a vibrant progressive tradition, a comprehensive pushback can yet be mounted. However, (and at the risk of sounding like a broken record) it is incumbent on progressive forces to objectively introspect on what we got wrong and constructively course-correct. These observations are based on the author’s experiences in Maharshtra over the past four months.
Firstly, progressive parties and forces still excessively depend on creating a meta-narrative (mahaul) to shape election outcomes. This strategy is premised on large rallies and symbolic events, which are resource intensive. The assumption is that the message from these will percolate down, thus swaying the hearts and minds of people. But through bitter experience, the media systematically deoxygenated most MVA events/rallies.
Unfortunately, progressives have not invested enough in creating a concomitant social media architecture — primarily on messaging services. While there are a plethora of YouTube, X, Meta and Instagram influencers, progressives lack adequate pipelines to disseminate content to the silent majority (beyond those already aligned with parties). What progressives also lack is a more organised effort to curate content that methodically counters the disinformation/misinformation of far-right content creators.
Additionally, there is a need for greater synergies with the host of YouTube channels which are more objective than the mainstream media. While efforts were made to send party spokespersons to such platforms during the Lok Sabha elections (hence legitimising them), these efforts were not replicated in Maharashtra. As a result of all these factors, MVA parties were unable to create a hawa (wave) even though their content was factual and sharper. These systemic problems can easily be resolved in the run-up to the local body polls.
Secondly, because rallies and large events have diminishing returns, it would be expedient to take a leaf out of Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s book and organise more intimate meetings with key stakeholders before elections. During the Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY), he interacted with small groups of influential stakeholders from various sectors that included honest conversations on difficult questions. Apart from the obvious PR potential of such meetings, they successfully converted value aligned stakeholders into para-ambassadors of the Congress party (who then actively campaigned during Lok Sabha polls).
It is no surprise that multiple senior leaders from the BJP have since vilified civil society as a national threat. However, going forward, there is a strategic need to deepen granularity in such meetings locally. From the experience of party-civil society meetings in districts like Kolhapur, Satara etc., two key challenges need to be resolved. First, civil society itself is given to spectacle tactics, focusing on symbolic events, dharnas, pamphleteering etc. While these are essential, they are no longer enough to reach or convert the silent majority. This is because the onus is on the voter to attend, hear and read what is being propagated.
Consequently, many a time, civil society groups were restricted to their respective bubbles, whose occasional overlaps were confused for enhanced outreach to new catchment areas. This was exacerbated by the fact that while many civil society leaders constructively acted as catalysts for our shared cause, some myopically made their interventions about themselves.
In stark contrast, it was ironically the Sangh Parivar that effectively replicated the BJY’s methodology. In western Maharashtra for example, small sabhas, satsangs and closed-door meetings were organised with various communities as well as sectoral interest groups at the ward/panchayat levels. Eschewing large events and the media glare, the Sangh led these micro-interactions for at least three months — to convert the uninitiated, to prod the already initiated into becoming active campaigners, and to confuse traditional voters of the Congress party. To borrow a sporting metaphor, this man-to-man-marking paid rich dividends for the BJP-led Mahayuti. This is something progressives can start doing now, in preparation for the local body elections.
The second problem progressives parties faced in civil society interactions in western Maharashtra was conceptual. Building on the pre-Lok Sabha samvidhan samman sabhas, discussions invariably began with exhortations to protect the constitution and safeguarding Maharashtra’s asmita (pride) and sanskriti (culture). But demands were inevitably made for more.
While agreeing to a normative alignment based on constitutional values, civil society leaders pointedly asked how parties intended to take this further. Some questions stood out in most meetings, namely what the MVA would do to tangibly stand with communities under attack (western Maharashtra saw many riots in the last few months), what MVA’s answer was to sub-categorisation (which the BJP openly positioned as a panacea for greater politico-economic mobility to Dalit and OBC sub-castes), what MVA would do to stop attacks on religious structures and how the MVA’s economic blueprint for India was different from the BJP’s. The slew of measures taken by the MVA including sadbhavana marches, commitment to the caste census, and the proposal to remove the 50% cap on reservations were dismissed (even by Dalit and OBC groups) as inadequate to resolve immediate problems.
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What civil society hoped the MVA parties (especially the Congress) would offer was protection against various kinds of attacks, a deeper and sustained engagement with Dalit, OBC and Muslim communities as well as firm and timely stands on thorny issues. They wanted answers on what we would do concretely, not rhetorically. Like what Rahul Gandhi did in the BJY (and what Mahatma Gandhi did through the constructive programme in the 1930s), they expected MVA to go beyond transactional electoral engagements.
Thirdly, it was clear that such expectations can only be requited if progressive parties also work on socio-cultural and ideological issues at the ward and village level (and not booths, which are essentially election-oriented and don’t invoke ownership by either political or social activists).
Such work would have to complement the work of district-level leaders because even if leaders are normatively proactive (as in Kolhapur, Chandrapur, Amravati, Sangli, Baramati etc.), electoral exigences overwhelm them. To counter Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS’s) shakhas, progressives need multiple champions and boots on the ground. But parties will need an institutionalised structure for this because clearly, merely exposing the Sangh’s agenda isn’t adequate anymore.
This was acutely clear when it came to countering BJP’s polarising campaign in western Maharashtra (Batenge toh Katenge slogan (if you are not united, you’ll be slaughtered), communal disturbances, polarising rhetoric spread through a web of social media groups etc). Some valiant efforts were undoubtedly made by MVA leaders (who took out inter-faith communal harmony marches) and saints from all communities, who proactively organised a dharma sansad condemning hate and divisiveness. But these were not as granular as the Sangh’s microscopic Sajag Raho (Be Vigilant) campaign, which had warkaris and kirtankars urging Hindus to stand by BJP through pravachans and powadas (traditional Marathi ballads). Such micro-local campaigns were partly how the BJP beat massive macro-level anti-incumbency.
Ultimately, the key takeaway for progressives to remember going forward is that those who love peace must organise as effectively and microscopically as those who spread hate. Can we not try to reorganise ourselves, solicit alliances with new stakeholders locally, and then programmatically channelise them for the forthcoming Maharashtra local body polls?
There were undoubtedly other variables that shaped this election. On one hand, the Sangh could have been flexing to show it can survive without Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah (which is why their campaigns were limited). Similarly, cash transfers (through Ladki Behen Yojana and alleged disbursals before polling), the weaponisation of state agencies, the propping up of dummy candidates and the Election Commission’s partisan role aided the Mahayuti coalition.
On the other hand, problems in seat-sharing, ticket distribution, social engineering and dissident management, as well as a cohesive MVA campaign (premised on a joint war-room and streamlined coordination) hamstrung MVA. The net result of these interconnected factors is an unprecedented upending of Maharashtra’s progressiveness (and the values of Shivaraya-Shahu-Phule-Ambedkar which are ingrained in the state’s cultural ethos).
Few outside Maharashtra can understand how massive a leap backward this is, and the true import of this loss to India. This is why we all need to shake off any sense of despair, and redouble our focus and energies on Maharashtra for the next three months.
Many legitimately fear that the very survival of the constitutional idea of India is at stake (ironically in the 75th year since our constitution was adopted). As concerned patriots, we all do have a right to demand greater focus and efficiency from progressive parties, who unfortunately lost the momentum from the Lok Sabha polls. But the protection and furtherance of the idea of India is a collective responsibility.
Therefore, it cannot be business as usual for all of us, not just parties. Without urgent normative and structural reforms in our operational methodologies, we will all be complicit in hammering the final nail. We all need to be more than what we are, irrespective of the odds we face. This is the only way ahead.
Pushparaj Deshpande is the spokesperson of the Congress party and the author of “Bharat Jodo Yatra: Reclaiming India’s Soul” (HarperCollins).
