A tale of two coalitions in Maharashtra

The beating of the Congress is so severe that its entire top leadership, including Balasaheb Thorat, one of the architects of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), and former chief minister (CM) Prithviraj Chavan, lost. The party, which was fighting for 101 points, struggled to overcome the score of 15.

The results are also likely to accelerate the decline of the two regional parties that have long dominated Maharashtra politics. Even though the idea of ​​the Shiv Sena was Balasaheb Thackeray’s loud and energetic nativist Hindutva party, it has weakened and weakened despite Eknath Shinde’s performance. It is perhaps ironic that the rise and fall of the Shiv Sena is so inextricably linked to the Congress.

Although the Shiv Sena party was formed in 1966 at the height of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, it became Bombay’s own power center in 1985 when it won the Brihan-Mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections. This was possible thanks to the tacit support of the then Congress chief Vasantdada Patil, who sought to destroy his party leaders, including Murli Deora, a Marwari. Vasantdada famously remarked, “Bombay is the capital of Maharashtra, but there is no Maharashtra in Bombay,” and he went to the extent of supporting Balasaheb Thackeray’s nativist position of banning entry into the city of outsiders who came in search of work.

Thackeray plastered Bombay with posters of Vasantdada’s statements, and so began the Sena’s control of the BMC, the country’s richest civic body, which remains the source of its political power to this day.

But at the same time, for a party that has built its political capital on the “Other” (be it Tamils, Muslims, migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, or the “secular” Congress), its formal alliance with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in 2019 put voters and staff at a crossroads. This also gave Eknath Shinde a reason to revolt and split the party.

The Shiv Sena’s (UBT) victory of 57 seats – more than all the MVAs put together – is a resounding reversal of the Shiv Sena’s (UBT) emotional pitch branding Shinde and his legislators as traitors. Slogans calling on the Shinde government Gaddar, Mindhe Sarkar (subordinate government) and “Pannas hohe, ekdum ok” (bribe takers) were effectively suppressed.

But the rugged Shinde, despite his meteoric rise, his financial generosity and the instincts of a top-notch poker player, lacks the Thackeray cult of personality that dominated the Shiv Sena’s message. Shinde, who counts Thane strongman the late Anand Dighe as his mentor, recently said in a private conversation: “Uddhav Thackeray was CM for two and a half years and so am I; we are equal.” But the party he has created is far from the clear-cut chauvinist party of Balasaheb Thackeray and can best be described as a BJP-lite.

A similar existential dilemma faces the NCP. Sharad Pawar, its founder, who has straddled the Maharashtra political scene like a colossus, may have thrown his last dice. He will be 89 years old by the time of the next election.

With most of his senior leaders defecting to Ajit Pawar, he is left with a brigade of young leaders who are yet to be groomed. More worryingly, his party won only seven of the 40 seats it contested against Ajit Pawar’s NCP and suffered a near rout in the sugar belt of western Maharashtra, Pawar’s home turf, where he has dominated politics for decades.

For Ajit Pawar, who spent the longest in his uncle’s shadow, Saturday’s results will be doubly sweet. He not only defeated Sharad Pawar but also won the prestigious Battle of Baramati against his nephew Yugendra. It would not be surprising if there is another exodus from Sharad Pawar’s party to him in the near future.

Ajit Pawar, a seasoned administrator who has so far failed to become CM, split the NCP in 2023 and joined the BJP-Shinde alliance to ostensibly seek protection from probes by central agencies.

But his beliefs are at odds with those of his two allies, who are ideologically compatible, and he is distrusted by the BJP’s core voters as well as the cadre. After wiping out the opposition, the BJP will in all likelihood keep him close and crush any ideological uprising.

There are many reasons for this exceptional Mahayuti victory that will be dissected in the coming days, but one of the main reasons is the failure of the MVA to convince voters that this is a natural alliance.

First, the consolidation of Muslim votes for the Shiv Sena (UBT) in the Lok Sabha elections just four months ago has left the party deeply troubled. A prominent leader admitted in a private conversation: “The Muslim vote may be postponed tomorrow and then we will have neither the Muslim votes nor our core Hindu votes left. We’re stuck in a bad situation.” Uddhav Thackeray’s attempt to put his name forward as the chief ministerial face of the MVA was an attempt to strengthen the base. But his eventual neglect and prolonged disputes among allies over seat sharing made the MVA’s internal problems all too apparent. As with Humpty Dumpty, it may be difficult to save the alliance from the weight of its contradictions.

The opinions expressed are personal