Maharashtra Election (2024) Results – My Takeaways!

The much-awaited results of the Maharashtra State elections are out today. Here are my quick takeaways from the results not in any particular order:
1. It is confirmed that forecasting results in Indian elections correctly is “Luck by Chance”. Hardly any opinion poll or exit poll or political analyst predicted such a 3/4th majority for the BJP-led alliance in Maharashtra.

2. The run-up to this Maharashtra polls was the most chaotic in terms of parties, alliances and individuals. I had written about this in my last blog (Please read here, if you haven’t). Everything alluded to a Maha Khichdi in a Maha mess. I had mentioned that whenever in the past, the people were subjected to a period of instability and misgovernance under the guise of a Khichdi Sarkar, they always voted decisively in favour of a party or a pre-poll alliance. That’s exactly what happened today in Maharashtra. Though the people voted for the Mahayuti alliance comprising mainly of the BJP, Shiv Sena (Shinde) and the NCP (Ajit Pawar), by giving an overwhelming number to the BJP, it is clear that the people wanted a stable BJP-led government. One never knows if the BJP had contested 15 more seats, it would have got the majority by itself. Therefore, Poha won over Khichdi in the Maharashtra battle.

3. Experts, pundits and analysts will pore over the results and give a surfeit of reasons for such a one-sided win for the Mahayuti that too after a very poor showing in the Lok Sabha elections just 5 months ago – The Ladki Bahin program, OBC Consolidation over Marathas, RSS groundwork, communal polarisation, infrastructure push etc… There could be an influence of these factors in different levels. However, there is an overarching emotional factor that could be ascribed which was told to me by a good politically aware and astute friend and I tend to agree. As per the late Cho Ramaswamy, the Indian voter never punished a party or a leader twice for the same mistake. Here again, we saw that once the BJP was punished by the voters in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024 for their machinations to somehow get back to power, that angst has not been carried forward to this election. On the contrary, I felt that there was a sympathy factor towards the BJP for punishing them too harshly in the Lok Sabha polls.

4. The constituents in the Mahayuti it appears, have done the vote transfer perfectly to others. This explains the almost similar and spectacular strike rate of the BJP, Shiv Sena (Shinde) and NCP (AP). This worked very well for the Maha Vikas Aghadi in the Lok Sabha polls which explained the overwhelming support of the Muslim community to the UBT Shiv Sena candidates.

5. As far as Maharashtra is concerned, the 2024 Lok Sabha results were a blip in the radar. One can now say that since 2014, the state has clearly become a stronghold of the BJP, like other states in the Hindi heartland. Now with this result, it will go for the kill in terms of establishing itself as a party that could come to power on its own by dominating the Anti-Congress space in Maharashtra.

6. On this, I would like to put forth an important hypothesis of course, purely based on the wisdom of hindsight and this is how it goes:
In 2019, after a convincing win as a pre-poll alliance, the Shiv Sena ditched the BJP thereby denying a second term for the BJP. The Sena then formed an unholy alliance with the Congress and NCP and came to power. This triggered a series of negative energy among the BJP leaders who tried all their tricks to bring down the government.
First, it broke the Shiv Sena. Shinde-led faction of the Sena supported the BJP and it could wrest the power back in the state by 2022. When everyone thought that Devendra Fadnavis would return as the CM, the party stunned all pundits by pitchforking Eknath Shinde as the CM and urging Fadnavis to become his deputy. I remember vividly that this move triggered a deep sense of anger and disappointment even among the staunches of BJP supporters.
But now if you look back, this could be seen as a huge masterstroke by the BJP think tank to once for all finish the Shiv Sena which shares the Hindutva and Marathi manoos space in Maharashtra. It was obvious that as long as the Shiv Sena shares this space, it could never hope to win a majority on its own. Because Shinde became the CM, he could consolidate his personal position and also at the same time elevate his faction’s position among the Sena voters. He also proved to be a hardworking, down-to-earth neta in comparison to Uddhav Thackeray who was more of a “Zubin Mehta CM” ©!
By this, the BJP could achieve its objective of significantly denting the stronghold of the Thackeray legacy. Now imagine if Fadnavis was made the CM and Shinde just his Deputy, it would not have been possible to get the stature of the Shinde faction enhanced. Therefore, my hypothesis that by sacrificing the CM chair for 2.5 years, the BJP could now achieve the almost impossible task of cutting the Sena legacy to size. The BMC elections which have been on hold for a long time now, will be conducted now and whatever remains of the UBT faction’s presence could see a dent.
Similarly, most BJP supporters were angry and upset that the BJP tied up the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP in July 2023 when there was no need. Here again with the wisdom of hindsight, one could explain that this was done for the following reasons:
One, keep Shinde in check so that he doesn’t grow more than desired.
Two, by making Ajit Pawar the Deputy CM and even leaving the finance portfolio to him, the BJP took the risk of elevating the faction’s stature to weaken the Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP. The results bear this out now. The NCP – Sharad Pawar faction has been decimated and with age and health not siding with the Pawar senior, it will be difficult for that faction to sustain.
With a dominant performance by itself, the BJP could now improve its stature and keep the aspirations of both the Shinde and Ajit Pawar factions in check while gradually weakening them as well. In short, the experiments and risks the BJP has taken in Maharashtra since 2022 will allow a clutter-free space for the BJP to dominate the anti-Congress space for the future in Maharashtra. These were huge risks that could have backfired (in fact the party was punished for the same in the Lok Sabha elections) but now seems to have paid off spectacularly.
7. And last but not the least, one of the key takeaways from the win is that Prime Minister Modi need not do heavy weight lifting for state elections anymore!

Postscript:  One can expect parties scrambling to copyright the translated versions of Laadli Behna in different languages.

Image credit: Jagran