It was a day just like any other day for Maratha strongman and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar. After the results of the Maharashtra assembly elections came in, he held a press conference. All he had to say was that people do not like the arrogance of power. He said he was going to visit Satara to express gratitude to the voters who defeated Udayanraje Bhosale in the Lok Sabha by-election, necessitated by Bhosale's resigning as the NCP member of Parliament and crossing over to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The next stop for Pawar will be his hometown, Baramati. After Diwali, he is going to meet with his NCP leaders. In short, Pawar's work is far from done.
In 1980, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had imposed President’s rule in the most stable and orderly state that was Maharashtra. However, the results of the assembly elections at the end of it only served to reaffirm Pawar’s power, for the electorate returned as many as 52 of his Congress Samajwadi candidates to the House. This made him Leader of the Opposition. Some months after, when some members of the Congress old guard took the lead in refurbishing the party ranks, some of the Pawar group jumped ship. However, Pawar was not discouraged by this and he stuck to his guns. His spirit was unbeatable. History seems to have repeated itself.
In the 2019 Maharashtra assembly elections, the NCP has increased its strength by 13 and the Congress by 2. In comparison, the BJP and the Shiv Sena's numbers have decreased by 17 and 7, respectively. There was a Congress-NCP alliance and there were no differences between them. Balasaheb Thorat has only recently assumed charge as the new state Congress chief. There were only a few meetings addressed by the former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and party leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia and Bhupesh Baghel, the chief minister of Chhattisgarh.
In contrast to the BJP, few meetings were addressed by the central Congress leaders. Neither did Congress chief Sonia Gandhi nor the party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi show up for campaigning in the state. But the bright side to this was that the Maharashtra state Congress leaders fought the battle on their own. Thorat entrusted Ashok Chavan with Marathwada, Prithviraj Chavan with western Maharashtra and Manikrao Thakre with Vidarbha. He himself took charge of the back office and strategy planning.
He is a well-known figure in the co-operative movement, as the founder of a milk co-operative and the former president of Sangamner District and State Co-operative Bank. Although a leader with experience, Thorat prefers to keep a low profile. With nil financial resources and few party workers, he managed to do an effective job. Public and media detractors apart, what Thorat achieved is incredible. Congress has never treated state leaders with importance. Only when the party learns to do so will it grow.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had claimed there was no opposition in the state but the Congress and the NCP have proved him wrong. Further, Fadnavis had claimed, after the election, the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) led by Prakash Ambedkar would be the main opposition party in the state, but this claim too was shot to bits because the VBA came up a big zero. However, because of the VBA’s candidates, the Congress and NCP lost 32 seats. This only goes to prove that the VBA is not an opposition party, but actually the B-team of BJP. If these seats had gone to the Maha Aghadi, then the Mahayuti’s defeat would have been bigger.
In Marathwada, state minister Pankaja Munde lost by a huge margin of 30,000 votes. Though the BJP has a traditional OBC base and no less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a public meeting there, she lost. Two-time minister Jaydutta Kshirsagar, who migrated to the Sena from the NCP, was defeated by his nephew from the NCP, Sandeep Kshirsagar. Sena leader Arjun Wankhede lost his seat. The BJP was bent on defeating former CM Ashok Chavan but its dream remained just that. In Vidarbha, a BJP stronghold, its tally was reduced by 15 and six of the losers were from Nagpur district alone, the headquarters of the RSS and the CM’s hometown. In Vidarbha, the BJP did not field new faces and also sidelined Union minister Nitin Gadkari while chalking out its campaign strategy. Narendra in Delhi and Devendra in Maharashtra was Modi's slogan. Devendra means Maharashtra, was the claim. Such overconfidence was bound to boomerang.
"In north Maharashtra, we will create a new record by winning 43 seats out of 47," asserted water resources minister Girish Mahajan, Fadnavis's man Friday. But these claims sadly, held no water. The Mahayuti's tally was slashed by half. In western Maharashtra, the Congress-NCP was relatively successful.
In Satara, Udayanraje Bhosale lost face, and the NCP candidate Shriniwas Patil won. Sharad Pawar stood vindicated. In Sangli and Kolhapur, there was public discontent against the government in the wake of floods. BJP state president Chandrakant Patil is from Kolhapur but he could not ensure victory in even a single seat there. He himself won from Pune’s Kothrud constituency. But the BJP, which had a 1-lakh vote victory margin from this seat in the Lok Sabha, found this reduced 25 thousand in this election. In Konkan, there was a straight fight between Narayan Rane and the Shiv Sena. Rane’s son Nitesh won from Kankavli but in Sawantwadi and Kudal, candidates supported by Rane lost the election. Now Rane is in the BJP. In the future, may have to mend fences with the Sena.
The BJP will definitely form the government in Maharashtra but it cannot ignore the Sena. The latter will insist on important portfolios like home, revenue and urban development. It will be more aggressive than before. And in the Vidhan Sabha and the Vidhan Parishad, the Congress-NCP will corner the government on many issues. So, it most certainly will not be a cakewalk for the BJP. From 2014, the BJP had been singing, 'Muqabla Humse Na Karo...'. But the 'non-existent' opposition has shown, 'Hum Kisise Kum Nahin'.
(The writer is a senior journalist and political commentator)
