Maharashtra Elections | Is a century on a turning pitch possible?

After an unprecedented rollercoaster ride in the past five years, will any political party secure 100 seats in the 288-member Assembly in Maharashtra? This is a million-dollar question ahead of a bitterly fought election in the premier state where politics has become murkier than before.

Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra and Sachin Tendulkar’s home turf has witnessed such diverse political deliveries since the 2019 Assembly polls. It has seen a steady stream of body-line bowling. With several no balls, umpteen bouncers, yorkers, and googlies, could even baffle the Little Master. The political pitch has become unpredictable.

Maharashtra has seen two prominent regional parties split into two factions in the most controversial circumstances. It is for the first time the state is witnessing six prominent political players at the hustings, turning this Assembly election campaign into a make-or-break affair for each of the six parties: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress, the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde), the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray), the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar), and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar).

Faced with many imponderables, neither of the rival alliances has projected a chief ministerial candidate, thus underlining the complexities within political parties and alliances. Thackeray’s demands that the Congress-NCP-SS(UBT) Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) name a chief ministerial candidate has not found many takers.

With so much at stake for the political parties, this is not seen as just another Assembly poll, but one where opponents are baying for blood — this is uncharacteristic of the state’s politics.

The only political party that crossed the 100-seat mark in the last polls was the BJP, which secured 105 seats. It was, however, down from its best figure of 122 seats in 2014, on the back of Narendra Modi’s emergence on the national scene. The BJP’s catapulting from the fourth to the first position in the state dramatically altered the politics of this once Congress-dominated state.

Since the 2019 Assembly elections, the state has had three governments. The political landscape has undergone such a change that the best psephologists would not like to stick their necks out. That said, one prediction that can safely be made based on surveys and the 2024 Lok Sabha results is that the MVA has an edge. However, the BJP-led Maha Yuti is attempting a comeback to bridge the narrow lead that the MVA currently enjoys.

There will be more clarity over the next fortnight once seat-sharing agreements among allies are finalised. The seat sharing in the Maha Yuti is expected to be according to the current seats the allies have in the Assembly. Negotiations for the remaining seats are underway.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah’s frequent visits to the poll-bound state reflect how important winning the state is for the BJP. Neither the world’s largest party nor its detractors are leaving anything to chance.

The politics in the state has changed in the last decade, especially in the last five years. For the first time, ideological foes have become friends in these polls and vice versa. Long-time Hindutva allies have become rivals showing that ideology no longer binds allies.

Five years back no one would have imagined that the Bal Thackeray-founded Shiv Sena would break bread with the Congress and that the latter would be a part of a government headed by a Shiv Sena leader. The BJP, which not long ago cried from the rooftops about Ajit Pawar’s corruption, is now sharing power with him and it is a part of a government where Ajit Pawar is deputy chief minister.

Election watchers are projecting the Congress to win the most number of seats, while the BJP would have the largest vote percentage. This could be because the BJP will be contesting more seats than the Congress. In the last Lok Sabha polls, the Congress surprised everyone by securing 13 of the 21 seats it contested; in 2019 it won one seat, and in 2014 from two.

Maharashtra is facing a plethora of problems and the uncertainty and instability in the state leadership has affected the timely addressing of several of these problems. Agrarian distress and the increasing demands for Maratha reservation can no longer be ignored. Political parties need to highlight their vision and lay out their plan for reviving the fortunes of Maharashtra — this should be the focus of every campaigning candidate.

(Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari are senior journalists.)

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)