BJP's best ever show in Maharashtra means Fadnavis could be at helm again

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was on course to turn in its best ever performance in Maharashtra since the founding of the party in 1980, and the Congress its worst since 1962, when the newly created state had its first Assembly polls.

 

At 5pm, the BJP had won, or was leading in, 132 seats, which is 13 short of a single party majority in a house of 288, while the Congress had won, or was leading in, 16 seats.

 

Sources within the BJP indicated that the party, which was within touching distance of the majority mark, was unlikely to concede the chief ministerial post to one of its alliance partners. BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is a minister in the Madhya Pradesh government, pitched for Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis as the next CM of the western state.

 

 

In June 2022, despite the BJP’s greater numbers within the alliance, the party had conceded the CM’s post to Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde, who had split the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena to join the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and form the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra.

 

Electors choose nephew over uncle

 

But as vote counting trends became clear by Saturday evening, the bigger question was around the fate of the Congress’ two allies in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) - Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT).

 

The NCP (SP) had won, or was leading, on a mere 10 seats. The NCP, the faction that Ajit Pawar, the nephew of Sharad Pawar heads, and which is an ally of the BJP, had won or was leading on 41 seats.

 

Intriguingly, Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) secured 11.26 per cent, which was almost two percentage points higher than that of Ajit’s NCP, which secured 9.38 per cent vote share. With Sharad Pawar, now almost 84, and his daughter Supriya Sule failing to inspire their party’s supporters, the electorate has now decidedly passed on the baton of the Maratha leadership into Ajit’s hands.

 

Uddhav's enfeebled Sena

 

In the case of the two Shiv Sena factions, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena had won, or was leading in, 55 seats, with a vote share of 12.46 per cent. The Thackeray-headed Shiv Sena had won, or was leading, in 21 seats, with its vote share being 10.30 per cent. With the civic polls due in Maharashtra, the Sena (UBT) could face attrition in its ranks after this defeat.

 

With the win, the BJP-led Mahayuti, which comprises the Ajit-led NCP and Shinde-led Shiv Sena, turned around its poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections, where the alliance could only win 17 of Maharashtra’s 48 seats against MVA’s 30 seats, and had trailed by three per cent in the vote share secured.

 

Welfarism and women support

 

Shinde credited the turnout to his government’s welfare schemes, especially for the women and poor, and its focus on infrastructure development. BJP sources said the win was thanks to the party’s synergy with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh cadres and its trust in the party’s local leadership. According to one exit poll, women voted for the Mahayuti in greater numbers because of the Majhi Ladki Bahin scheme of the state government of providing an allowance of Rs 1,500 to women.

 

The BJP’s previous best performance in Maharashtra was when it won 122 seats, with a vote share of 27.81 per cent, a decade back in 2014. However, the party had then contested 260 of the total 288 seats, having at the time severing its ties with its ally, the undivided Shiv Sena. 

 

However, in 2024, the BJP contested only 148 seats but with a strike rate of almost 90 per cent. As it was leading in 132 seats, the BJP is only 13-seats short of the majority mark.  

 

The Shiv Sena (UBT), and its ally Congress, had promised to scrap the Dharavi redevelopment project, currently with the Adani group, and fought the elections on the plank that industries were being made to set up their new plants not in Maharashtra, but Gujarat. However, the campaign evidently failed, with the Sena (UBT) struggling to win seats in the Mumbai region.

 

The BJP-led Mahayuti swept the seats across all regions of Maharashtra, including Vidarbha, where distress among cotton farmers had become an emotive poll issue.