Maharashtra polls: Bruised in LS, how NDA got its groove back

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti won 235 of the 288 assembly constituencies in Maharashtra, with the BJP itself winning 132 of the 149 seats it contested for a strike rate of 88.5%; its allies the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party won 57 and 41 of the 81 and 59 seats they contested, respectively.
Also Read: Mahayuti seizes a Maha mandate, Soren keeps his Jharkhand crown
If the results were surprising –– in terms of magnitude if not the direction –– attribute it to the summer’s Lok Sabha election, when, of the state’s 48 seats, the Mahayuti could win only 17, with the opposition, the Maga Vikas Aghadi winning 30.
If the results were surprising, attribute it to the fact that the Mahayuti was the incumbent, facing charges of poor governance and mismanagement.
And if the results were surprising, attribute it to the fact that the Mahayuti came to power after the BJP engineered a split in the Shiv Sena, and that it consolidated power by engineering another split, in the Nationalist Congress Party, and many experts believed the cynical alliance-making had turned off some voters.
But the Mahayuti surprised everyone.
For it ran a much better campaign than the MVA –– in terms of not just issues but also managing the dynamics of the alliance.
Also Read: Mahayuti’s nuts-and-bolts campaign
Party leaders credit the win to the Mahayuti’s welfare schemes, notably the Ladki Bahin one that was launched in August, and which gives Rs1,500 to eligible women beneficiaries. They credit the win to the BJP’s gambit of doubling down on its Hindutva agenda, consolidating the Hindu vote across classes and communities. They credit it to an efficient, and region-specific campaign that addressed hot-button local issues. And they credit it to the role played by the Rashtriya SwayamsevakSangh, the BJP’s ideological parent which was conspicuous in its absence during the Lok Sabha campaign.
Preparation
The preparation for the Maharashtra battle began in earnest within days of the June 4 Lok Sabha polls verdict, which left the BJP smarting. According to a senior party functionary who asked not to be named, within days , the party had met with state-level leaders to understand what went wrong. Within a fortnight, on June 17, the party announced state-in-charges to oversee the election campaign . The party chose union ministers Bhupender Yadav and Ashwani Vaishnaw as state in-charges.
“The main reasons for the poor showing were apathetic and demotivated cadre, internal rifts , and the challenges that come from a leading a coalition; yet another crucial reason was the disconnect between the Sangh (RSS) and the party,” added the functionary.
Union home minister and the BJP’s chief election strategist Amit Shah met state leaders in several closed door meeting and , in a meeting on July 21, is believed to have insisted that the fight would be between alliances.
“There was a whisper campaign that the party would fair badly by aligning with Ajit Dada (Ajit Pawar’s NCP), and there was a group that felt that Uddhav Thackeray (of the Shiv Sena-UBT) would walk away with the sympathy vote as the BJP was seen as the driving force behind the spilt in the party. That is when Shah, in a terse message said the narrative would be set by the BJP and it would be the Mahayuti versus the MVA,” said the functionary quoted above.
To ensure this message distilled down, Shah and party chief JP Nadda met with workers from every zone.
“Shah directly addressed over 10,000 workers,” said the functionary.
To counter voter apathy and indifference among workers, the party reset its booth management programme, with a focus on smaller communities. “Across the state, we carried out meetings with voters from a bunch of smaller caste groups (from the SC and OBC categories), that had between 200 and 250 people in attendance. There was a fresh approach to both the SC and OBC voters,” said a second functionary who asked not to be named.
The party also identified booths where it had lost by narrow margins and set out to increase its vote share in these by 15%.
And in each case, the party picked issues that it believed would have the most impact on the ground.
“We studied the caste, party affiliation and the issues in each of the constituencies to draw up a campaign that would resonate the most,” added the second functionary.
The role of the RSS
With the differences between the party and the Sangh ironed out, the BJP chose to roll out its election campaign on the twin poles of development (which included welfare) and ideology. While on the one hand it showcased massive infrastructure projects such as the Atal Setu and policies for the empowerment of women and farmers, on the other it ran with the ‘Ek hai to safe hai’ (we are safe as one) theme raised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally in the state.
Political watchers said the thrust on Hindutva was meant to counter the call for caste census by the opposition, notably the Congress; both the BJP and the RSS asserted that this was a call for the unity of the larger Hindu community in the interests of peace and national security.
“Why call it polarisation…it is consolidation of the Hindus who were divided on the basis of caste,” said a senior functionary of the RSS who asked not to be named. He said the Sangh’s volunteers were active on the ground, creating “awareness” about issues, motivating the voters to cast their ballot and to counter the “false narrative” of the opposition.
“Swayamsevaks undertook Janajagran (door-to-door) and addressed small meetings for creating awareness about issues that are crucial for India’s development and security…” the functionary said.
The Sangh’s vast network of foot soldiers was used to shore up the party’s campaign to flag the opposition’s “failures and misdemeanours” such as the Emergency; the 1984 pogrom against the Sikhs and the demand for restoration of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
Also Read: RSS plays a key role in BJP-led Mahayuti’s big win in Maharashtra
“The (BJP’s) win in Haryana, despite the predictions of a big loss came as a shot in the arm for the karyakartas who were motivated to give their best,” said the RSS functionary.
The Sangh’s renewed push also ensured that voters turned up on the day. “In the LS polls about 4-5% of the BJP’s committed voters did not show up…this time we spared no effort to ensure that the problem does not recure,” said the second BJP functionary.
The turnout in Maharashtra, at 66.05%, was 4.5 percentage points higher than in the Lok Sabha polls, and 4.5 percentage points higher than in the 2019 assembly elections. Interestingly, turnout among women voters was 65.22% –– an indication, analysts say, that the Ladki Bahin scheme was working.
Targeting the opposition
And while the Mahayuti went to the masses with its own “good governance record”, it undertook a simultaneous campaign to “discredit” the opposition .
Thus, the e BJP accused Uddhav of walking away from Hindutva that his father Bala Saheb espoused, and it painted Sharad Pawar’s party as a dynastic entity.
“On the day the Congress released its manifesto, the BJP ran advertisements highlighting the failures and the unmet promises of the Congress in Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana.,” said a third party leader speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Thackeray’s alliance with the Congress, his decision to become CM, his appeasement of the Muslims was all against what Bala Sahab stood for…it became a rallying point against him during campaigns,” said the third leader. To counter the question of who would the the face of the Mahayuti, the party showcased three faces, Eknath Shinde, Ajit Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis as the three pillars of the coalition and sidestepped the tricky issue of chief ministerial candidate.
The party was unable to achieve the same in Jharkhand, as it failed to woo tribal communities in the absence of a a strong local leader, party functionaries aware of the details said. The BJP conceded defeat to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-led alliance on Saturday, winning 21 of 68 seats it contested.
According to senior party leaders, although the party’s election narrative that tilted more towards ideological issues, found a resonance across the state, the party failed to pitch a local face as a counter to JMM’s Hemant Soren.
“The central leadership identified two strong leaders who have a record of winning elections, union minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to oversee elections, but it failed to project a strong local leader, who could take on Soren,” said a party functionary.
With tribal voters making up 26.21% of Jharkhand’s population, BJP pulled out all the steps to win the 28 ST-reserved seats, but could win only 1 of the 25 seats it contested. In 2019, the BJP, which contested 79 seats won two of these 28, while its overall tally was 25 with a 33.37% vote share.
The party’s bid to woo the tribal vote bank by inducting Champai Soren into the party fold also did not yield results. “There was a section of leaders in the state who had suggested letting Soren float his own party, which would have helped dent the JMM’s vote share,” said the leader.
Social media
Even the alliance’s social media strategy was designed to ensure the coalition partners appeared in sync with each other. About 30 broad issues including infrastructure, women, farmers, employment, and internal security were identified for social media campaign. Of these eight were region-specific. In addition to the party’s own social media handles, third-party handles on platforms such as Youtube were given details of the issues that needed to be amplified.
Like it did in Haryana, the party also refrained from making the election a battle of personalities, avoiding over-reliance on the PM and focussed on leveraging the benefits of boots on the ground to retain power.
“In the end the BJP was able to balance the politics of indirect benefit (development and infrastructure) and direct benefit (doles and sops) and capitalise on the goodwill of women who are a game changer,” said the second functionary.