Ajit Pawar says there is “absolutely” no chance of him rejoining his uncle Sharad Pawar in the future.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar politically broke away from his uncle Sharad Pawar almost a year ago. His claims on the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and its symbol were accepted by the Election Commission but the matter is now with the Supreme Court. He contested as a partner of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Lok Sabha election and could win one seat out of four. This time, in the State Assembly election, Ajit’s party is contesting 55 seats. He believes that the Mahayuti has improved its election position in the last four months and is going to win this election. He spoke to Frontline during his campaign in Marathwada. Excerpts.

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Before the formation of the BJP in 1980, the Congress dominated Maharashtra’s politics with the formidable support of Marathas, Dalits, Kunbis, tribal people, and Muslims. The appeal of the BJP’s predecessor, the Jana Sangh, was limited to Brahmins and, very nominally, some other castes. In order to break this equation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the saffron parties, decided to change tack. It brought its ideologue and full-time member Vasantrao Bhagwat to the helm of organisational affairs in the State. Bhagwat, a Brahmin from Ratnagiri district of the Konkan region, was asked to make the BJP a statewide party. Towards this, he introduced the Ma-Dha-Va formula.

Ma-Dha-Va is a Marathi acronym for Mali (gardener), Dhangar (shepherd), and Vanjari (a semi-nomadic caste from Marathwada). Bhagwat understood the crux of the politics of the time: the Marathas, the State’s ruling caste, which accounted for 32 per cent of the population, made up the majority of the Congress vote bank. The BJP had little scope for getting Muslims, Dalits, and tribal people into its fold. What remained were the smaller castes, which had no political representation in the Congress.

Those were the days of the Mandal Commission (its recommendations were submitted in 1980), which laid emphasis on the “Other Backward Classes”. With many smaller communities eyeing OBC status, Bhagwat focussed on the Malis, Dhangars, and Vanjaris, which were the dominant communities in that category. Thus emerged the first generation of BJP leaders in Maharashtra: N.S. Farande (Mali), Anna Dange (Dhangar), and Gopinath Munde (Vanjari).

The BJP’s strategy to consolidate the non-Maratha smaller castes, or OBCs, paid off. It helped the party expand its influence among the Bahujan. The term “Bahujan” was in use a thousand years ago in the Pali language to describe the non-elite classes. In modern India, the social reformer Jyotirao Phule, himself from the Mali community, used it in his path-breaking essay on the history of non-Brahmins. Babasaheb Ambedkar expanded the concept further in his works.

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Bhagwat’s outreach gave the BJP, hitherto known as a Brahmin-dominated party, a Bahujan tag. In 2024, following the defeat of the Mahayuti (grand alliance) led by it in the Lok Sabha election held in April-May, and with the Maratha reservation movement emerging as a dominant political issue, the party has returned to the social engineering days of the Ma-Dha-Va formula to save the day.

The Maratha reservation demand

The Maratha reservation demand is not new, but it gained fresh momentum under the leadership of Manoj Jarange-Patil. On October 1, 2023, following a police lathicharge on protesters that Jarange-Patil led in the Jalna district of Marathwada, the agitation for Maratha reservation turned violent for the first time in its 20-year history (“Maratha quota agitation: A cat among the pigeons”, Frontline, published online on November 11, 2023).

The protest by the dominant community of Marathas put pressure on the State government. Jarange-Patil’s demand was to include the Marathas from the Marathwada region in the Kunbi category. The Kunbi community, which is predominant in the Vidarbha region, comes under the OBC category. In a way, Jarange-Patil was demanding OBC status for the Marathas too. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde accepted his demand and announced a committee headed by a retired judge to look into it.

At this point, the government faced a backlash from the OBCs in the State, who were against sharing the space with the Marathas. In late 2023, Chhagan Bhujbal, a Cabinet Minister in the Shinde government, opposed the government decision publicly. He addressed rallies in Marathwada, where the Maratha reservation issue was central to the political discourse. Jarange-Patil’s rallies demanding Kunbi status for Marathas and Bhujbal’s rallies opposing it split the State vertically along caste lines.

The BJP was already in trouble because of careless remarks made by its members ahead of the Lok Sabha election that the party wanted a three-fourths majority in Parliament in order to change the Constitution. This angered Dalits; Muslims were already preparing for tactical voting, and tribal communities were exploring alternatives after incidents of atrocities against them in Manipur and Madhya Pradesh. With the Maratha bloc also turning against it, the Mahayuti won only 17 seats in Maharashtra as against the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA) 31. This prompted the BJP to introspect.

Interestingly, the plot thickened soon after the Lok Sabha election results were announced when a protest by Lakshman Hake and Navnath Waghmare on June 13 over the dilution of the OBC quota grabbed the headlines. The protest venue was Vadi Godri village in Ambad tehsil of Jalna district, barely 4 km from Jarange-Patil’s village and his protest venue at Antarvali Sarathi.

Hake was a little-known OBC leader who contested the Lok Sabha election from the Madha constituency and secured just 5,134 votes. He comes from the Dhangar community, a large section of which has been demanding reservation under the Scheduled Tribes category. He highlighted a promise made by the BJP in 2014 to give the community reservation under the ST status if it came to power. Hake’s protest against the inclusion of Marathas in the Kunbi category saying that it will reduce the existing share of OBCs resonated among members of the latter.

The Lok Sabha results came as a shocker not just to the Mahayuti, which won just one of the eight seats in the Marathwada region, but to the OBCs too. Two OBC leaders, Mahadev Jankar of the Dhangar community and Pankaja Munde of the Vanjari community, lost the elections from Parbhani and Beed, respectively. In this context, Hake’s protest became immediately popular among OBC youth. Over the past three months, a perception has been created that Hake has consolidated OBC support across the State.

Hake has asked his supporters to defeat the “wrong candidates”, specifically naming Rajesh Tope and Rohit Pawar, both MLAs of the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) faction, which is a constituent of the MVA along with the Congress and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction.

Meanwhile, in the Maratha camp, Jarange-Patil, who had refused to contest the Lok Sabha election on the grounds that he would not enter electoral politics, was under pressure to field candidates for the Assembly election. He held talks with Muslim leaders, mainly the Islamic scholar Sajjad Nomani, with a view to fielding joint candidates in a few seats. But, by the morning of November 4, Jarange Patil seemed to realise that by doing so he would be dividing the Maratha vote, which would ultimately help the BJP. He decided not to contest the election and asked his supporters “to vote for anyone of their choice while keeping the community’s interests in mind”.

A clear picture emerges

From the outset, Jarange-Patil was seen as a front for the NCP (Sharad Pawar). Many BJP MLCs such as Pravin Darekar, Sadabhau Khot, and Prasad Lad had called him a mask for Pawar. The tallest Maratha leader in the State, Pawar was widely believed to be the hand behind the Maratha movement. However, with Jarange-Patil appealing to his supporters to defeat the BJP’s candidates and Hake asking his followers to defeat Pawar’s candidates, the picture is beginning to get clearer in Maharashtra.

Given the widespread opinion that a Jat-versus-non-Jat binary helped the BJP retain Haryana for a third consecutive time in the recently held Assembly election, it seems likely that the Maharashtra election is being worked along the same lines.

The BJP has tasted success with its social engineering formula on many occasions. In 2016, when Devendra Fadnavis was Chief Minister, the Maratha community hit the streets in large numbers over the sexual abuse of a Maratha girl from Ahmednagar (now Ahilya Nagar) district. The community held 52 rallies across the State, which were seen as attempts by the opposition parties to stir public sentiment against the BJP. At that time too the BJP’s strategy of consolidating non-Maratha Hindu votes in the State paid off. Within four months, in the local body elections (2016-17), the BJP emerged a clear winner, securing almost 200 municipal councils of 320 and 21 municipalities of 26.

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Political observers, however, point to one difference between 2017 and 2024. Jaydeo Dole, a senior journalist from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, said: “In 2017, the BJP’s novelty factor under Prime Minister Modi was intact. Also, Dalits and tribal people were not a part of the anti-BJP consolidation at that time. This time, Dalits, Muslims, and tribal people are strongly against the BJP. That is why the 2017 non-Maratha consolidation formula is no longer useful for the BJP.”

According to the 1931 Census, Marathas account for 32 per cent of the State’s population, with Dalits at 14 per cent, Muslims at 11.54 per cent, and tribal communities at 9.35 per cent. Although OBC leaders claim that they constitute 54 per cent of the population, there is no authentic data to substantiate this. However, it is clear that if the Maratha–Muslim–Dalit–Tribal consolidation takes place, accounting for more than 60 per cent of the population, any counter-consolidation will not work.

Recognising this, the BJP has focussed on consolidating OBCs along non-Maratha lines while still trying to get a big chunk of the Maratha vote. To achieve this, it has deployed its Maratha leaders to take aggressive stands on religious lines. Leaders such as Nitesh Rane and Pravin Darekar have been vocal on right-wing Hindutva issues, aiming to appeal to religious sentiments.

Another shrewd move by the BJP is to deploy its alliance partners strategically. Chief Minister Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, both Marathas, are campaigning in every constituency where the party has a Maratha candidate. Of the 152 seats the saffron party is contesting, it has given an almost equal number to OBCs (46) and Marathas (44), which shows its intent to avoid antagonising the Maratha community while appealing to the OBCs.

Maharashtra has around 100 Assembly seats where Maratha voters constitute 25 to 40 per cent, 40 constituencies where Kunbi voters constitute 20 to 30 per cent, and around 35 constituencies where non-Kunbi OBC voters make up 20 to 30 per cent. Polarisation along caste lines will matter in these 170 Assembly constituencies, a significant segment of the total 288 Assembly seats. The outcome of this election will depend solely on which caste consolidation strategy proves successful this time.

In a wide-ranging interview with Frontline, Sunil Tatkare, the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) Maharashtra unit chief and a close confidant of Deputy Chief Minister and party leader Ajit Pawar, forecasts a dramatic reversal of his alliance’s fortunes in the upcoming Assembly election. Despite the Mahayuti’s (as the National Democratic Alliance is known in Maharashtra) disappointing performance in the recent Lok Sabha election, where the BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP alliance secured only 17 seats compared to the rival Maha Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA) 31, Tatkare argues that key government initiatives and shifting political narratives have transformed Maharashtra’s electoral landscape.

The veteran politician, who defected from Sharad Pawar’s camp, dismisses concerns about Maratha reservations and industrial exodus while expressing confidence in securing an “absolute majority” through improved vote transfer between alliance partners and strategic regional consolidation. His optimism, however, will soon be tested as Maharashtra prepares for a crucial electoral battle that pits former allies against each other, most notably in Baramati’s high-stakes “Pawar versus Pawar” contest. Excerpts:

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On October 1, Deputy Chief Minister and BJP’s foremost leader in Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, made a controversial remark in Kolhapur: “Vote jehad was witnessed during the Lok Sabha election. This resulted in Maha Vikas Aghadi’s [MVA] huge success in 14 out of 48 Lok Sabha constituencies. The consolidation of Muslim votes resulted in heavy losses for the Mahayuti.” The MVA, although weakened by splits in the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), won 31 Lok Sabha seats. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA), on the other hand, bagged 17. These remarks were immediately seen as Fadnavis’ desperation to stir the communal pot in the State.

The Assembly election was not announced at that time in the State. But Fadnavis’ statement was a clear attempt to consolidate Hindu voters ahead of the Assembly election. The Election Commission of India, while announcing the Model Code of Conduct on October 12, took cognisance of Fadnavis’s statement and “warned of strict action” if it happens again. This statement, meanwhile, brought attention back to the consolidation of Muslim votes against the BJP and in favour of the strong winnable party.

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“Vote jehad” is a communal term being pushed by the BJP and Hindu right-wing leaders to discredit Muslim votes. It also aims to create a fear factor among Hindu voters so that they will vote on communal lines. Fadnavis was not the first to use the term “vote jehad”. Many BJP leaders, including former MP Kirit Somaiya, MLA Nitesh Rane, MLC Pravin Darekar, and others have used the same term since the Lok Sabha election results were announced. The “vote jehad” reference was an attempt at polarisation.

It is a fact that a Muslim consolidation occurred in favour of the MVA in Maharashtra during the Lok Sabha election. But the BJP’s narrative that targets only the Muslim voter’s choices is based on half-truths. The analysis of Lok Sabha election results clearly shows that Dalits, tribal people, and Marathas in some parts of the State consolidated in favour of the MVA. Sections of women, farmers, and rural youths also backed the MVA.

The tribal community clearly distanced itself from the BJP in this Lok Sabha election. There are four seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes in the State. The BJP won all four in 2019; in 2024, it could win only one. The agricultural crisis and inflation impacted the election. Despite these facts in hand, the BJP continues to push the communal rhetoric.

The consolidation of Muslim and Dalit votes was tricky until November 4, the last date of withdrawal of nomination, as the role of the Maratha community in the election was important. Manoj Jarange Patil, Maratha leader of the reservation protest had announced that his candidates would contest 26 seats, in Marathwada and Western Maharashtra, to highlight the cause of the Maratha reservation. But, on the last day of withdrawal of nomination, Patil backed out and asked his supporters to withdraw their nominations. “Politics is not our business. Let these political parties fight. We are not going to contest because it is not possible to fight elections with the support of just one caste. Muslim and Dalit leaders were supposed to join us in contesting elections. But this is not happening,” said Patil. This has come as a big relief for MVA leaders as well as Muslim and Dalit community leaders.

An important dynamic that has emerged after the Lok Sabha election is the issue of proportionate representation of Muslims by the MVA. Out of 288 Assembly seats in the State, there are 30 constituencies where Muslim votes came from 10 per cent to 40 per cent of the total electorate. This is why, many Muslim organisations were demanding that the MVA field more Muslim candidates. Muslim workers and social activists formed the Maharashtra Democratic Front (MDF), a banner under which several Muslim political enthusiasts are taking the initiative to campaign. In meetings held after the Lok Sabha election results, MDF representatives asked MVA to field at least 25 Muslim candidates. But that has not happened. The Congress has given eight, the NCP two, the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) one, and the Samajwadi Party two Muslim candidates.

Frontline has learnt from sources that there is a strong sense of disapproval among the MDF workers over the low representation of Muslims in the MVA’s ticket distribution. Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) leader Aaditya Thackeray reacted to this issue: “Shiv Sena does not give tickets looking at caste, religion, or creed of the person. The only thing we look for is winnability.” A young functionary of the MDF, on condition of anonymity, said: “They want our votes, but they don’t want us to be in the Assembly. Muslim youths are not ready to accept this one-way business.”

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So where will Muslim votes go in this Assembly election? Meanwhile, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has upped the tone of its campaign saying they are the only ones who raise Muslim concerns. The AIMIM had clout among Muslim youth in the 2014 and 2019 Assembly elections as well as Lok Sabha elections. Post 2019, Muslims at large understood that they would have to tactically vote to remove the BJP from power. That benefited the MVA in Maharashtra. However, the lack of representation among candidates has irked the community.

The Dalit story is not as complicated: they have reservation in the Assembly. In Maharashtra, there are 29 Scheduled Caste (SC) reserved constituencies. Therefore, the issue of political representation does not arise. The Dalits in Maharashtra have been voting between the Congress and republican parties of the State. Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA) emerged as one of the strongest voices in the last decade. But the Lok Sabha election has shown a different picture. There are 14 per cent Dalits in the State, out of which 7 per cent are Buddhist Dalits. Buddhist Dalits have been strong supporters of secular progressive politics. But non-Buddhist Dalits, who are still within the Hindu religion, vote according to the local situation.

Garnering Dalit votes

While the BJP is aggressive on the issue of “vote jehad” targeting the Muslim community, it is entirely silent on the tactical voting of Dalits. Instead, it attempts to paint the Congress as an anti-Constitution party. But more than the BJP, it was the VBA that tried to make this a big issue in the State. If this has had an impact on Dalit votes, there would be a possibility of the MVA receiving fewer supporters from SC voters in the Assembly election. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi is to start his campaign at Nagpur in the Vidarbha region with his “Samvidhan Samman Sammelan” (Constitution Respect Seminar) on November 6, aimed at garnering Dalit votes in Maharashtra. Nagpur happens to be the headquarters of the RSS, BJP’s mother organisation.

When the Congress had a virtual hegemony in Maharashtra back in the 1980s, it had successfully cultivated the electoral formula: in Vidarbha, it was called DMK (Dalit–Muslim-Kunabi) whereas in the rest of the State, it was MMD (Maratha-Muslim-Dalit). As per the 1931 Census, Marathas are approximately 32 per cent. Dalits are 14, Muslims are 11.54 per cent, and tribal people are 9.35 per cent. This combines to almost 65 per cent of the total population. The consolidation of around 60 per cent of these voters brought the vote share of the MVA to almost 44 per cent in the Lok Sabha. That translated into 31 seats out of 48. Repeating this would be a key to the MVA’s success.

The Election Commission of India has announced the schedule for the Maharashtra Assembly election. Voting will take place in a single phase on November 20, with the counting on November 23. The current Assembly’s tenure ends on November 26, so the oath-taking ceremony for newly elected MLAs must be completed before that date. While the last five Assembly elections in Maharashtra were held in October, this marks the first time voting will occur in November, near the end of the Assembly’s term. An electorate of 9.59 crore voters (4.95 crore men and 4.64 crore women) will decide the fate of candidates across 288 constituencies. Nearly 19.48 lakh are first-time voters. As many as 25 seats are reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and 29 for the Scheduled Castes (SCs).

Following the Haryana Assembly election results on October 8, in which the ruling BJP trumped the Congress despite the perceived widespread anti-incumbency sentiment, political pundits have been quick to draw parallels between the two States and see the Haryana result as a pointer to the possibilities in Maharashtra. However, caste dynamics and agrarian issues, mostly involving the dominant Jat community, differ in both States. Moreover, in Maharashtra, the focus will be on the State’s progressive identity, legacy of social justice politics, shifting political dynamics, and declining social indicators.

Political stability will be an important factor in the election. Between 2019 and 2024, Maharashtra saw three Chief Ministers, one of whom was in office for only 70 hours (Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP). The past five years also saw four Deputy Chief Ministers, with Ajit Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) being sworn in three times (from two different political parties). Besides Pawar, Fadnavis too is a Deputy Chief Minister in this government.

The split within the Shiv Sena (into the Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde factions) and the NCP (into the Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar factions) has increased the number of key political players to six, and this election could well decide which faction of these parties truly represents the cadre.

In the recent Lok Sabha election, Maharashtra voted in favour of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) consisting of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar), and the Congress. The MVA won 31 of 48 seats in the State, while the ruling Mahayuti (the Shiv Sena led by Shinde, the BJP, and the NCP led by Ajit Pawar) could win only 17. The Congress increased its tally from just 1 seat in the 2019 election to 13 this time. The BJP’s tally fell from 23 to 9. The Shiv Sena (UBT) won 9 seats, two more than the Shinde-led faction. The NCP(SP) won 8 seats, and Ajit Pawar’s party only 1. An Independent who won extended support to the Congress.

The MVA’s success is attributed to the BJP’s ambivalence over the Maratha reservation issue, the agricultural crisis, and subnationalism. These issues will be potent in the Assembly election too. The Maratha community, which accounts for 30 per cent of the State’s population, has been agitating since August last year for reservation.

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Their leader, Manoj Jarange-Patil, went on a fast demanding the Kunbi certificate for Marathas of the Marathwada region, which would help them get reservation in jobs and education.

Kunbis belong to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Chief Minister Shinde promised them reservation in the OBC category, but the OBCs objected on the grounds that it would encroach on their rights. The issue had an impact on voting behaviour in at least 12 Lok Sabha seats, and the government’s failure to resolve the issue meant that the Mahayuti won only one of the 12 seats.

Jarange-Patil’s agitation has not lost momentum. On September 17, he went on his sixth hunger strike; he ended it eight days later because of ill health.

Cabinet’s approval of Justice Shinde Committee report

On September 30, the Maharashtra Cabinet approved the report of the Justice Sandeep Shinde Committee, which was constituted to expedite the process of issuing the Kunbi certificate on the basis of historical records. This is viewed as a significant step to appease the Maratha community ahead of the Assembly election.

Unlike in Haryana, where non-Jats rallied behind the BJP, the issue of reservation has sharpened the identity consciousness in many castes in Maharashtra. The fact that the Mahayuti government has accepted the Maratha reservation demand but has not yet implemented it is a sore point among them.

Then comes the issue of the Dhangar community, which now belongs to the OBC-Nomadic Tribes category, wanting ST status. The government has formed a committee to look into their demand, but this has disturbed the STs, who constitute 9 per cent of the total population. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the Mahayuti (National Democratic Alliance) won only one of the four seats reserved for STs in Maharashtra, as against all four in 2014 and 2019.

Another issue that affected the BJP’s chances in the Lok Sabha election in Maharashtra was the falling prices of onion, cotton, and soya bean. The onion farmers’ crisis cost the Mahayuti eight Lok Sabha seats. The Union government has now suspended the export duty on onions. However, onion prices at Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs) in Maharashtra have not improved much.

To placate cotton and soya bean farmers, who wield huge influence in 11 Lok Sabha constituencies, the government has offered to pay Rs.2,500 crore in subsidies to 65 lakh farmers. This is the difference in the market price and the minimum support price (MSP) for both crops. On September 30, the government transferred Rs.5,000 for an acre to every cotton and soya bean farmer. A farmer is entitled to subsidy for his crop on 2 hectares. These measures are aimed particularly at farmers of Marathwada and Vidarbha regions, once BJP strongholds that have since shifted their allegiance to the Congress.

Just as in Haryana, the agrarian crisis is of great significance in Maharashtra too. However, the election in the western State will be held when it is harvesting time for cotton and soya bean. More than the subsidies, the government will have to see that farmers get the desired price in this season. Managing the agricultural market in real time could pose a tough challenge.

Mahayuti’s trump card

What looks bright for the Mahayuti are the good monsoon season and the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin (Chief Minister’s My Beloved Sister) Yojana, a cash-transfer scheme that aims to reach 2.5 crore women aged between 21 and 65 with Rs.1,500 a month (see “Maharashtra’s Ladki Bahin scheme: Great expectations?”, Frontline website, September 26, 2024). Its leaders hope that this single scheme will change the “narrative” of the election. For the Ladki Bahin scheme, the government has already reached out to 1.85 crore women. But if the Mahayuti is seen as leveraging the government machinery, it could backfire.

What matters more is that voters seemed not to have taken kindly to the BJP’s political manouevres in splitting the Shiv Sena and the NCP in order to gain power. This was seen as an attack on Maharashtra by Delhi. The first sign of voter discontent manifested itself in the Lok Sabha election, although other issues such as the Ram temple, unemployment, and inflation too played a role.

Additionally, the relocation of industrial projects to Gujarat has raised concerns about the Central government’s neglect of Maharashtra. This becomes stronger with the connection of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to Gujarat. MVA campaigns revolving around this could work to its advantage.

Then there is the polarising tactics of the BJP, with leaders such as Nitesh Rane making communal speeches at rallies. Fadnavis recently accused the minorities of engaging in “vote jehad” in 11 constituencies in the Lok Sabha election, where the party believes that Muslims voted en bloc for one party. Organisations affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have also taken an aggressive stance over the recent communal tension in western Maharashtra’s Kolhapur (over removal of encroachments near the Vishalgad fort) and Konkan’s Bhiwandi (over rumours of stone throwing on a Ganesh idol immersion procession).

There will in all likelihood be three alliances in the election, with smaller parties such as Bachchu Kadu’s Prahar Janshakti Party (PJP), Raju Shetti’s Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, and Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati’s Swarajya Sanghatana engaging in talks to form an alliance. Bachchu Kadu, who has been with the Shiv Sena, founded a sociopolitical organisation called Prahar in the early 2000s. It later became the PJP, gaining influence in the Achalpur and Chandur Bajar tehsils. In 2004, Kadu was elected to the Assembly and is now expanding his influence across 32 Assembly seats in western Vidarbha.

Shetti’s Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana is a splinter group of the once-strong farmers’ movement in the State. Shetti believes that farmers’ interests can be safeguarded without aligning with the major parties. As such, he contested the Hatkanangle Lok Sabha constituency in Kolhapur district. Although he lost, his organisation has a presence in 40 Assembly constituencies in the sugar belt of western Maharashtra.

Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati is the son of Shahu Maharaj, a descendant of the Maratha king Shivaji Maharaj. He has been trying to mobilise the Maratha community for reservation over the past three years. However, he lost prominence when Jarange-Patil entered the scene. He claims to have a sizeable influence in 120 Assembly constituencies in north Maharashtra, Marathwada, and western Maharashtra.

Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) have significant influence in different pockets of the State. Both leaders have already started announcing their candidates in various constituencies. Raj Thackeray supported the Mahayuti in the Lok Sabha election, but he has decided to go solo in the Assembly election. Although his party has only one MLA, its influence is spread across some 65 constituencies in the Mumbai, Pune, and Nashik regions.

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The VBA polled 2.75 per cent votes in the Lok Sabha election. It does not have any MLA. It is banking on the 11 per cent Dalit votes in the State.

Critics see the creation of a third front as the BJP’s ploy to split the MVA votes. But the Mahayuti’s seat-sharing has been problematic just as it was during the Lok Sabha election. If the MVA capitalises on this as an example of divisive tactics, it would be able to consolidate non-Mahayuti votes.

Dominant political families

Another significant shift in Maharashtra politics is the resurgence of the erstwhile dominant political families, which started with the Lok Sabha election and has gained momentum ahead of the Assembly election. Many of them who faced setbacks in the past 10 to 15 years hope to regain their hold in their respective areas and have joined hands overtly or covertly. (“Reviving a dormant legacy”, Frontline, April 26, 2024). Although it may seem to be to the advantage of the MVA, the outcome could be different if Mahayuti leaders portray it as a battle between feudal lords and the people.

Apart from the political alliances, ideological battles are also intensifying. The RSS has reportedly deployed senior office-bearers to coordinate with the BJP in the State. They are holding district-wise meetings to activate the organisational machinery.

Meanwhile, citizens’ initiatives such as the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, Lok Morcha 2024, and Nirbhay Bano have started awareness campaigns among the people about the election. Haryana’s results may have given the BJP a shot in the arm, but it has definitely served notice to the MVA to get its act together.

As the clock ticks down to November 20, the coming weeks will show if the MVA can address the State’s complex issues effectively, or if the Mahayuti will follow Haryana’s path to victory in this crucial election.