As the BJP fell well short of the majority mark in Parliament in the recent Lok Sabha elections, one of the states where it lost ground is Maharashtra as its tally fell from 23 to nine.
This has set alarm bells ringing within the party as Maharashtra, a key battleground state, goes to polls later this year. To identify the challenges and fault lines and put a strategy in place, the state BJP has convened a meeting of its district unit presidents and office-bearers in Mumbai on June 14. Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, state BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule, and Mumbai BJP. Chief Ashish Shelar will be among the leaders who will address the meeting.
The biggest challenge confronting the party at the moment is Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange Patil who has restarted his indefinite fast in his village Antarwali Sarathi in Jalna district in demand for separate quota for his community. He has opposed the state government legislation providing 10% reservation to Marathas under the Socially and Educationally Backward Class (SEBC) category in jobs and education. This has been challenged in the Bombay High Court. Jarange Patil believes that the law will not withstand challenges to its legal and constitutional validity. The Supreme Court had struck down a similar law enacted in 2018.
Jarange Patil has been insisting that the government give all Marathas Kunbhi certificates to make them eligible for reservation under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category, bringing greater benefits and certainty. But that move is most likely to run into protests from OBC groups.
BJP insiders admitted that the fast had again pushed the party into a Catch-22 situation. “A section within the party believes that there is no reason to go on the backfoot and that the party should take the credit for giving Marathas reservation twice, in 2018 and 2024,” said a BJP leader.
The failure to keep the Marathas on its side cost the BJP in this election as of the eight constituencies in the drought-prone Marathwada region, the party failed to win any of the four that it contested. Of the parties in the ruling Mahayuti alliance, only the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde managed to win the lone seat of Aurangabad. The Congress won Latur, Nanded, and Jalna; the Shiv Sena (UBT) Hingoli, Parbhani, and Osmanabad; and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) bagged Beed.
Marathwada with 46 Assembly seats will be crucial for the party in the Assembly elections. In 2019, the BJP won 16 of these constituencies, the undivided Shiv Sena 12, the Congress eight, the undivided NCP eight, and others two.
Underlining the challenge that the Maratha quota issue poses, Fadnavis said last week, “We were contesting the battle against three parties: Congress, NCP (SP), and Shiv Sena (UBT) under the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). But there was a fourth party that was aggressively campaigning on reservation. We either failed to effectively counter their campaign or overlooked it.”
The other problems
Apart from reservation, the BJP also has to find a solution for the lack of coordination with its alliance partners Shiv Sena and NCP. That all was not well in the run-up to the parliamentary polls was apparent when the Mahayuti alliance partners remained stuck on seat-sharing for weeks on end.
“In any election, it is natural for every party to want to contest maximum seats. A tussle during seat-sharing talks is natural in any coalition. But once the seat and candidates are announced it requires support at the grassroots. We will focus on improving our coordination at the grassroots and strengthen the Mahayuti,” said Bawankule.
The state BJP leadership believes that Muslim and Dalit consolidation in favor of the MVA also dented its prospects in the parliamentary polls and will have to be addressed as it prepares the roadmap for the state elections. A BJP leader said the Shiv Sena (UBT) managed to consolidate the Muslim vote in the Lok Sabha polls and that proved to be a major detriment. “Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray’s compromise on Hindutva brought about this paradigm shift. Muslims stood by Uddhav who compromised his core ideology for their votes.”
The party also believes that the Opposition campaign on the alleged threat that a BJP-led NDA with more than 400 MPs would present to the Constitution worked in its favor and drove away Dalit votes from the Mahayuti. Fadnavis has publicly admitted that the Mahayuti failed to effectively negate this “false narrative”.
At the June 14 meeting, the BJP will analyze all the macro and micro factors that led to its poor showing in the Lok Sabha elections. In Vidarbha, which is considered the party’s stronghold, the party believes it will have to address the issue of agrarian distress and a sense of disquiet among farmers. The main crops in the region are cotton and soybean and recent price fluctuations have financially affected farmers. Although the BJP has held international rates responsible for the impact on the domestic market, a party leader said that “tackling the problems of the farmers is our responsibility”. The onset of the kharif sowing season, which begins in the middle of June, will be the first test of the BJP’s modified strategy and outreach to farmers.