The BJP won just nine of the 28 Lok Sabha seats it contested in Maharashtra, down from its tally of 23 last time. The Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP won seven and one seat, respectively, bringing the Mahayuti’s tally to 17. The rival Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), on the other hand, won 30 seats. The MVA includes the Congress, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).
The shocking reduction in seats was seen to reflect on Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis’ leadership—his apparent inability to pull the party amid alliance troubles and the Maratha reservation issue. He was also blamed for selecting the wrong candidates as the BJP high command was said to have allowed him the final say.
Addressing state workers of the Vidarbha region in Nagpur last month, Shah spoke plainly about several issues and handed out tips to the BJP leaders present.
Speaking to ThePrint, some of these leaders said that Shah used the Gujarat analogy to allay fears about possible loss in the Maharashtra election due to the Maratha agitation. He said that during the Patidar agitation in Gujarat, everyone was convinced the BJP would suffer, but it won (state polls of 2017).
“So focus on getting 10 percent more votes at every poll booth and let the Centre worry about the Maratha agitation,” Shah advised, also emphasising on the need to fight the poll collectively without bickering with alliance partners.
This was a message to both Fadnavis and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde who have been fighting among themselves to take credit for the Ladli Behna Yojana that was launched for the financial empowerment of women and to raise the stock of the ruling alliance ahead of elections, BJP sources told ThePrint.
This week, when Shinde was building pressure on the BJP for more seats for his party from the BJP quota, Shah reportedly told him that the “BJP sacrificed the CM’s post despite being the largest party in the state, so you should sacrifice too in seat-sharing”. The Mahayuti hasn’t yet announced candidates and talks are on regarding seats.
Shah’s words were ratified by state BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule when he spoke to the media Wednesday, ahead of the party’s central election committee meeting.
“CM Shinde must remain open-minded and be willing to make sacrifices. We, too, have made sacrifices to uphold the alliance. It is evident that the BJP aims to contest the seats we previously held. The common party workers feel that we (BJP) have the maximum MLAs, even if the CM’s post is with Shinde. Posts in corporations and ministerial posts should be with the BJP,” he told reporters.
In the previous Maharashtra assembly polls, the BJP had won 105 of 228 seats while the undivided Shiv Sena had got 56. The Shiv Sena later fractured and the Shinde-led faction joined hands with the BJP, with Shinde becoming CM.
Speaking to ThePrint, a state BJP leader said: “The first challenge for Shah was to motivate party workers who were under the impression that this election is very tough after the Lok Sabha result. Shah is visiting every zone and speaking to thousands of workers, infusing confidence that the BJP can form a government even in a difficult situation by employing a smart strategy and micromanaging the polls like it did in Gujarat and Haryana.”
Despite anti-incumbency in Haryana, a disgruntled farming community and a resurgent Congress, the BJP clinched a third term in the state after poll results were announced earlier this month.
A central BJP leader involved in Maharashtra strategy-making told ThePrint: “The second concern for Shah was smooth vote transfer between the three alliance partners, which did not happen in the Lok Sabha poll, especially between the BJP and (Ajit Pawar-led) NCP. That is why he has asked for a more coordinated campaign and joint rallies where the three allies will share the dais with the PM.”
“Similarly, the RSS has been tasked to negate anti-incumbency by holding small meetings across the state and changing public perception about the NCP,” the leader added.
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Fadnavis’ ‘failure’
Shah has taken the reins in Maharashtra from Fadnavis, who was more or less the final authority in the party in ticket distribution as well as seat-sharing negotiations ahead of the Lok Sabha election.
A BJP leader, not willing to be named, had told ThePrint after the general election that the party leadership had decided to drop some candidates on his word and it hadn’t gone down well with everyone.
“Under Fadnavis, the BJP had also adopted the strategy of consciously fighting maximum seats against the Congress in Maharashtra, thinking it would be easier than taking on the regional parties,” he added.
That strategy backfired as the Congress emerged as the single-largest party in the state with the key MVA allies effectively transferring their votes to each other.
The Congress won 13 of the state’s 48 seats and clinched 11 of these by defeating BJP candidates. The BJP won nine, with four of these victories being against the Congress, three against the Shiv Sena (UBT) and two against the Sharad Pawar-led NCP.
After the Lok Sabha polls, Fadnavis accepted responsibility for the party’s lacklustre performance in the state and offered to step down as deputy CM, saying he wanted to fully concentrate on party administration in the run up to the assembly polls. The BJP leadership, however, did not accept his resignation.
Since then, Shah has taken charge of the Maharashtra campaign, focusing on fine-tuning the poll strategy to holding seat-sharing talks with allies, deploying Union minister Kiren Rijiju in the Buddhist Dalit belt to expand the party’s reach, and sending Madhya Pradesh leader Kailash Vijayvargiya to take charge of the Vidarbha region as the state border adjoins it.
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Shah steps in, takes lead
Shah held his first meeting with the Maharashtra core group on 18 June in Delhi, and then again in July. Since then, he has visited six regions of the state and met more than 5,000 key party workers, including MLAs, former MLAs, corporators, MPs, ministers, district presidents and other influential cadres to galvanise them into action.
He reportedly also held a meeting in an airport lounge last month to iron out differences with Ajit Pawar.
A core committee member from Maharashtra told ThePrint that “when Shah met committee members in September, he advised that instead of organising big rallies, focus on small ones and reach out to people door-to-door by involving the RSS cadre”.
“Resolve grievances against the government and do not depend on big narrative issues to beat anti-incumbency; rather focus on micromanagement in areas of farmer and Maratha unrest where economic hardship is a big problem. Also, boost voter turnout by mobilising people, he said,” the member added.
When Shah met leaders of the Konkan region for a review in Mumbai this month, he boosted the cadre’s morale by insisting on “shatpratishat (100 percent) BJP government by 2029”, meaning that the BJP should aim to establish a government on its own in the state by 2029, according to the member.
He added that Shah also emphasised that “Fadnavis is capable of addressing challenges in Maharashtra” to send out the message that the central leadership was backing him fully in the assembly polls.
The central BJP leader mentioned earlier told ThePrint: “It’s not that state leaders are not involved and that Fadnavis is not making decisions, but it’s true that unlike other states, there are alliance partners here and they may not be satisfied with Fadnavis in seat talks, so Shah has taken the lead in these dialogues to make the discussions smooth.”
“Ground-level talks were done by Fadnavis and state leaders but knowing the weight of Shah, it has been left to him to make final decisions. In other states, Shah only got involved after BJP election committee meetings but in Maharashtra, the situation is different and he is more involved here,” the leader added.
The poll math
On the strategy part, Shah is guiding state leaders according to the fault-lines of the MVA.
According to the central BJP leader, Shah advised on focusing on branding Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena as having deviated from his father and party founder Bal Thackeray’s ideology and joining hands with the Congress. The reasoning is that core Shiv Sena voters still don’t like the Congress.
A second BJP leader told ThePrint: “We are portraying Eknath Shinde as a true Shiv sainik who is walking on the path of Balasaheb, unlike the inaccessible Uddhav. This will damage Uddhav’s Maratha and Hindu votebase in his stronghold areas.”
Shah has further asked leaders to focus on troubled zones and stressed on smaller caste mobilisation like it was done in Haryana against the dominant Jats. Also, the Union Cabinet has taken several decisions to address the agrarian crisis in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region and onion and soybean belt.
If the Lok Sabha leads this year are taken into account, the BJP marched ahead on 79 assembly seats, Shinde’s Shiv Sena on 40 seats and the Pawar-led NCP on 6 assembly seats (totalling to 125 seats against the majority mark of 145), while the Congress led on 63 assembly seats, Uddhav’s Shiv Sena on 57 seats and NCP (SP) on 34 seats, totalling to 154 against the majority mark of 145.
A second Maharashtra BJP leader argued that the “Lok Sabha result can’t be compared with the assembly’s as we lost five Lok Sabha seats in Haryana but despite the Congress resurging in that state, we got victory by micromanaging the election.”
“So, we have seen our shortcomings in the Lok Sabha poll and since then we have been taking steps to bridge the gap. The Ladli Behna scheme will be a game-changer in getting women’s support and nudging anti-incumbency. Similarly, the flip-flop on onion export and business has been corrected. The NDA had lost 8 Lok Sabha seats in the onion belt. Shah has held meetings to iron out problems and the BJP is looking at polarisation of more than 50 smaller castes in that belt,” the leader added.
A third BJP leader said: “Vidarbha is our key region where the contest is primarily between the Congress and BJP. We had swept the region winning 44 of 62 seats in 2014 but in 2019 we were reduced to 29 seats. In 2024, our leads reduced further on 15 seats. The Congress is making leads here with caste polarisation. The region is crucial because of the agrarian crisis.”
The leader added that in view of the above, not only has Shah visited the region, but leaders like Vijayvargiya have been involved in micromanagement. PM Narendra Modi too visited twice, on 20 September and 5 October.
“The RSS headquarters is in this area so we have a good base here. The party has addressed the cotton and soyabean distress in this region and announced free electricity to farmers. Altogether, two dominant OBC castes in this region, Teli and Kunbi, decide the poll outcome. The Congress is banking on Kunbi-Dalit-Muslim polarisation while the BJP is banking on Teli-Banjara and smaller OBC castes coming together,” the leader explained.
In the Marathwada region, the BJP is looking at counter polarisation of OBCs against the dominant Maratha community as there is growing unrest within the former regarding Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil’s demands.
Jarange-Patil has been insisting that the state government grant reservation to Marathas as Kunbis, who can avail of the quota meant for OBCs.
OBC activist Laxman Hake, who has been agitating to protect the OBC quota, shared the dais with BJP leader Pankaja Munde, who is from an OBC group, during Dussehra, sending a message about possible counter-polarisation.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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