More than 68 per cent of the eligible voters in Maharashtra came out to vote in this year’s election. The Maha Vikas Aghadi, led by the Congress with regional allies like Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP), and BJP-led Mahayuti allying with the split Shiv Sena faction of Eknath Shinde, the incumbent Chief Minister of Maharashtra, and NCP (AP) that split from its main party, campaigned on a range of issues that concern the residents of Maharashtra.
Since the 2019 elections, the state politics in Maharashtra has been a debacle. The state has seen three government shifts, three Chief Ministers and four Deputy Chief Ministers in a short span of five years. The state saw an unprecedented level of political turmoil with prominent regional parties engaging in treacherous politics and joining forces with enemy parties.
When voters came out to vote this year around, they would have likely kept in mind the madness of the last five years where their wills and needs were completely ignored by the political parties that struggled over one’s own power. While, the dire state of politics in Maharashtra would likely play a crucial role in the outcome of the elections, other factors like BJP’s attempt to consolidate OBC voters in rural areas, the doling out of freebies, the Maratha votes, the direct contest between BJP-Congress over 76 seats are also likely play a big role.
BJP’s consolidation of OBC votes
The BJP, as part of the Mahayuti alliance, has made rigorous efforts to consolidate non-Maratha voters, particularly the OBC voters. Since the mid-90’s, under the MADHAV formula, the BJP sought to consolidate votes from the Mali, Dhangar, and Vanjari communities to counteract the Maratha votes to the Congress parties.
The MADHAV strategy worked in the favor of the BJP and its allies, enabling them to dismantle the Congress advantage, to form government in key states during the general elections. The BJP has sought to take the same approach in the state assembly elections, and recently emerged victorious after two consecutive defeats in the previous election cycles in the closely-contested state of Haryana by using the same formula to foil the support of Haryana Jats to Congress.
The BJP’s slogan of ‘ek hain to safe hain’ to take advantage of OBC voters’ fears of the Marathas eating into their institutional and governmental reservations. If the attempt by the BJP to unify the OBC in Maharashtra proves to be a success, then it could counteract the Maratha vote to the opposing alliance.
The importance of Maratha votes
Maratha voters will play a crucial role in this year’s elections. The community’s demand for inclusion in the list of Other Backwards Classes has been ignored and has fallen on deaf ears for years now. The Mahayuti’s indecisive and uncertain stance on the issue, resulted in a massive backlash from the community with the BJP losing all parliamentary seats in Marathwada in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.
The MVA is likely to benefit from the rift between the Maratha community, led by Manoj Jarange Patil in Vidarbha and Western Maharashtra, and the BJP. The MVA has been vocal about meeting the demand of the Maratha community, and has promised to reservations to the Marathas, Dhangars, Lingayats, Muslims and VJNT (Vimukh Jati Nomadic Tribes) if they come into power, which might tip the scale in the favor of the MVA.
The direct contest between BJP-Congress for 76 seats
The national rivals will be battling each other in 76 seats of the 288 total assembly seats in Maharahastra. In recent times, BJP has had an edge over Congress in head-to-head fights, and is confident on winning 50 seats out of the 76. The fight between the parties is anticipated to be the most intense in the 36 seats in the cotton belt of Vidharba.
Vidharba: A BJP bastion
The second-largest region in Maharashtra after Western Maharashtra, holds 62 out of the 288 assembly seats in the state. Historically, the region has been a BJP stronghold, however, it ended up conceding its dominance to the MVA in the 2024 general elections after the MVA won 7 out of the 10 parliamentary seats.
The congress has promised a minimum support price of Rs 7,000 per quintal plus a bonus for soybean farmers if it comes to power in the region that is undergoing a rural distress, particularly the soybean and cotton farmers who have experienced lean harvests over the past few years. These incentives are likely to resonate within the region dominated by a farming community, and might likely result in a majority for the MVA in the region.
Vidharbha is the region where the real fight between the national giants occur. The BJP-led has fielded 50 candidates out of its total 150 in Vidarbha, while in opposition the Congress has fielded 40 candidates in the region.
The battle of the revdis (freebies)
With each side introducing several freebies, the Maharashtra elections had become a battleground for the provision of the revdis. The BJP’s Ladki Bahin Yojana, an initiative to transfer Rs 1,500 directly to women, has been a key talking point of the elections. The Ladki Bahin Program as well as several other programs introduced to benefit the unemployed youth in the state were an effort to lure women and other factions of voters to the BJP’s side.
In response, the Congress has promised to increase the sum of direct cash transfer to Rs 2,100 if they come into power. The congress announced similar incentives and benefit schemes for the youth and the employed resident in Maharashtra in an effort to match its opposition’s promises.
The introduction of such incentives is likely to have a major impact on the outcome of the elections. With the rising housing, electricity and gas prices in the state, the introduction of such initiatives provided much needed respite to the women in the state, and they are likely to reciprocate with their votes.
The outcome of the elections is likely to depend on the way these key factors have transpire over the course of the elections.
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