In Maharashtra, the voter has rewarded those with gumption and a new-age paradigm, rather than vote for a jaded brand of leadership that is served on a platter.
New Delhi: The Maharashtra Assembly elections had an interesting sub-text: the battle of the disruptors vs the inheritors. Initially, the entire Mahayuti Alliance was painted as a disruptor as it broke two regional parties to form a grouping that destabilised the Uddhav Thackeray-led government. The breakaway factions broke the dynastic chain of command and stole their respective party away from the identified heir apparent. Eknath Shinde wrested the Sena (symbol and all) from Uddhav Thackeray, while Ajit Pawar interjected himself as Sharad Pawar’s heir apparent, cutting out Supriya Sule from the line of succession. This election has ratified these disruptions, anointing Eknath Shinde as Bal Thackeray’s successor and Ajit as the next Mr Pawar. Clearly, the voter has rewarded those with gumption and a new-age paradigm, rather than vote for a jaded brand of leadership that is served on a platter.
The first impact of the Maharashtra win will be when Parliament meets for the winter session. Soon after the Lok Sabha results, a buoyant Opposition, sensing a chink in the BJP’s armour had gone after the Narendra Modi government. They even managed to get the government on the back foot and roll back some of its announcements. However, the Haryana elections saw the BJP regain some of its mojo. The Narendra Modi, who strode into the BJP office post the Haryana win, had a lot more swagger than the one who addressed the NDA after the Lok Sabha results. This was a Modi moment and as Maharashtra has shown, he kept up the momentum. Congress leader K.P. Singh Deo told NewsX that the score is equal: we won two and they won two. He meant that the I.N.D.I.A bloc had won Jharkhand and earlier Jammu and Kashmir; while the BJP and its allies won Maharashtra and Haryana. Only, the mathematics is not all that simple and clear cut. The BJP has clearly recovered from the Lok Sabha setback, sending a strong message to the Opposition—Haryana was not the aberration, if anything, it was the Lok Sabha polls that were the one off.
There are other hidden takeaways from these elections. The first of course is to identify the winners. Judging by the series of press conferences held by the Mahayuti it is clear that every leader (and wannabe CM) is trying to claim a share of the credit. The obvious claimants are of course, Eknath Shinde (under whose chief ministership the alliance went to polls) and Ajit Pawar, who delivered 40 of the 60 seats he contested. Within the BJP, the line of credit is not so clear, for Devendra Fadnavis, who may be the outgoing Deputy Chief Minister, but there are those within the BJP who will dispute his claims for the Chief Minister’s chair. It is an open secret that he is no favourite of the all-powerful Home Minister Amit Shah. This brings us to the not so obvious winner, one who steers clear from the limelight: what about Bhupender Yadav? The low profile strategist (and an Amit Shah favourite) has delivered yet another win for the BJP. The Cabinet Minister for Environment, Climate and Forests has been camping in Maharashtra for the last six months, working on ground, identifying voter groups and interacting with party workers. He even skipped going to Baku for the COP29 conference so that he could focus on the Maharashtra polls. This win has come at a time when the BJP is looking for a new party president. Could Bhupender Yadav, who has always been a headquarters man, succeed J.P. Nadda? He certainly has shown that he has his ear to the ground and knows how to make a team deliver. Don’t forget he was also the election-in-charge of the Madhya Pradesh state Assembly polls last year, where the BJP delivered a historic win.
The second hidden message is the signalling the Maharashtra results send to Team Rahul Gandhi. Yes, the Congress was part of the Jharkhand win, as much as it was part of the J&K win, but only in a supporting role. The lead role in both the states was played by an I.N.D.IA bloc partner. Although Rahul was not so visible in the Maharashtra elections, except for the one editorial he wrote clarifying his stand on big business, it was his leadership that was on trial. The rule by proxy that he is doing via Mallikarjun Kharge is not working on ground. It did not work in Haryana either. Does the Congress need a new leadership model? Winning Wayanad by a historic margin may not be enough to enthuse the cadres. Or to shut the BJP when it comes to a parliamentary face-off.
The third message is of course what the Maharashtra win means for Brand Modi. Post the Lok Sabha polls, election strategist Prashant Kishor had spoken about the diminishing returns of Brand Modi. Clearly, he has been proved wrong (once again). Although, like Rahul, even the Prime Minister was not so visible in the Maharashtra campaign, addressing nine rallies across the state. But Narendra Modi did seal the Mahayuti’s narrative of “Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain” and the posters had both the local leadership as well as the Prime Minister’s face. If the Mahayuti had lost Maharashtra he would have got some of the blame. So it’s only fair he gets some of the credit.
The fourth message is not from Maharashtra as it is from Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP has delivered a huge win in the bypolls, winning 7 of the 9 seats. These elections were fought under the leadership of the sitting Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. He was, incidentally, also one of the star campaigners in Maharashtra, with his “Katengen toh batenge” campaign slogan going viral. This was later echoed by the PM with his “Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain” line. After the BJP’s lacklustre performance in the UP Lok Sabha polls, there was a buzz that the CM could be replaced, that he did not pull his weight in the national elections and so on. But now, having delivered such a decisive win in the bypolls, two things are clear. The BJP will not be changing the UP Chief Minister before the state polls slated for 2027. And when it comes to the leadership stakes, Yogi Adityanath remains a prime contender from the GenNext. He has been smart enough to attribute the bypoll win to both the BJP’s leadership at the centre as well as the state, thereby indicating that he is back on the team.
The fifth message focuses on the political future of Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray. The former Maratha strongman, as Pawar was once known as, had gone into this election saying that this was his last election. His focus was not just to deliver a win for the alliance but also to ensure his daughter Surpriya Sule’s political future. But now it is clear that the reins of the NCP are firmly in the hands of Ajit Pawar and not his daughter. Given that Sharad Pawar lost the Baramati Assembly and given the fact that Ajit Pawar’s star is on the rise, where does that leave Supriya Sule? Will she join the Congress, for clearly there is not much of a party left for her to take over? Likewise for Uddhav Thackeray. Will the UBT Shiv Sainiks wait for another five years’ stint out of power or will they defect to Eknath Shinde’s Sena? Again, what about Aditya Thackeray? Does he have it in him to hit the ground and try and wrest his legacy back from Shinde?
There is going to be a lot of introspection on both sides for even the winners have to gauge how to distribute the credit, to identify winning strategies (Ladli Behna for one) and also to consolidate. In political parlance, you are only as good as your last election and the high profile Delhi elections are but a few months away. Certainly Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal can take heart from one message—the trend seems to be pro incumbents, and the voters seem to have a soft spot for those who have been targeted by the ED, from Hemant Soren to even Ajit Pawar.