From the 2014 Assembly polls to the recent Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has seen its tally in Maharashtra’s Scheduled Caste (SC)-reserved seats drop, with the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) making gains, particularly after its recent “Save the Constitution ” pitch aimed at Dalit voters.

Maharashtra has 29 Assembly and five Lok Sabha constituencies reserved for SCs, who account for 11.81% of the state’s population, as per the 2011 Census. There are at least 5 lakh SCs in 21 of Maharashtra’s 36 districts. The districts with the largest SC populations are Pune, Nagpur and Thane. Besides the 29 reserved Assembly seats, there are 67 other constituencies where Dalits comprise at least 15% of the total population.

In the 2014 Assembly polls, which saw the BJP emerge as the single largest party and ally with the then undivided Shiv Sena to form the government, the saffron party led in the SC seats. The BJP won 15 of the 29 reserved seats, followed by the Shiv Sena at nine. The Congress and then united Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won just two and three SC seats, respectively. Incidentally, the BJP did not have a pre-poll alliance with the Shiv Sena, and hence went head-to-head with its eventual ally in many seats.

Maharashtra reserved seats [CHART: Assembly poll results in SC-reserved seats]

It was a strong performance for the BJP, which won all but one of its SC-reserved seats by margins of over 10,000 votes. The Congress-NCP alliance was the runner-up in 13 seats and placed third or worse in 11 seats, where largely the BJP, Shiv Sena and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were the runners-up.

In terms of vote share in the SC seats, the BJP was far ahead of its rivals at 28.67%, followed by the Shiv Sena at 20.38%, the Congress at 16.79% and the NCP at 14.73%.

Festive offer

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, allies BJP and Shiv Sena won two SC seats each, with Independent Navneet Ravi Rana, who joined the BJP earlier this year, winning the last reserved seat. This was more or less the same as the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when the BJP-Shiv Sena combine had won all the five SC seats.

But in the 2019 Assembly elections, the BJP and Shiv Sena slide was more, winning just nine and five SC seats, respectively, as the Congress and NCP improved to seven and six seats, respectively. The two remaining seats were won by Independents.

Of the six seats that were decided by margins less than 10,000 votes, the BJP won four, and the Congress and NCP one each. The BJP was also the runner-up in the most seats at eight, followed by the Shiv Sena in seven, the Congress in five and the NCP in three. Notably, the best outings for the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), led by BR Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar, were in two seats where it finished as the runner-up behind the BJP.

Between 2014 and 2019, voters’ preferences remained unchanged in 17 SC seats that elected the same party again. But the remaining 12 seats elected a new party compared to 2014. The Congress and NCP were able to flip five and four seats, respectively, won by the BJP or Shiv Sena in 2014, while the BJP was able to flip one NCP seat. Two Independents also won seats where the BJP had emerged victorious in 2014.

In terms of vote shares in SC seats that year, the BJP was still on top at 25.12% despite declining by 3.55% points from 2014. The NCP and Congress both improved, to 17.37% and 17.21%, respectively, with the Shiv Sena dropping. to 15.53%.

By the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the state had undergone a major political realignment with the splits in the Shiv Sena in 2022 and the NCP in 2023, and the emergence of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and the ruling Mahayuti alliances. While Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP factions joined the Mahayuti, Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) joined the MVA.

In this new landscape, the BJP-led Mahayuti suffered major reversals across the state and in the SC seats in particular in the Lok Sabha polls this year. The MVA was able to flip all five SC-reserved seats from 2014, reducing the Mahayuti to zero seats. While the Congress won four SC seats, the Sena (UBT) won one, with the BJP finishing as the runner-up in three seats and Shinde’s Sena in two. The MVA parties won these seats comfortably with margins exceeding 4 lakh votes in four of the five SC-reserved Lok Sabha seats.

Breaking these Lok Sabha results down to the Assembly segment level – each parliamentary constituency contains several Assembly seats – shows that the Congress led in 12 segments, followed by the Shine Sena in six, the Sena (UBT) in five, the BJP in four, and the NCP (SP) and an Independent in one each. Combined, the MVA’s tally in the SC-reserved segments stood at 18, while the Mahayuti managed 10, with the last segment going to an Independent.