Maharashtra results: Tallying the unexpected

The brewing agitation in Maharashtra, challenging the 2024 Assembly election results that delivered an overwhelming majority to the Bharatiya Janata Party (in an alliance with factions of the Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde and the NCP led by Ajit Pawar), is more serious than mere election denialism. It is true that gauging electoral moods is a complex exercise, both for pollsters analysing data and observers reading the field. Yet, even with these caveats, Maharashtra presents a special challenge this time. 

This is because there is no denying that the mood of the electorate was and remains very different from the results delivered in the just-concluded 2024 Assembly elections. There is merit in the simple argument that this sentiment was obvious, visible, and firmly leaning towards an expected sympathy vote for the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (SHS-UBT), whose government was toppled after he made bold to break away from the BJP and challenged the BJP attempt to browbeat him into submission. 

The battle had all the makings of the fabled Maharashtrian pride standing firm against the sultanate from New Delhi, creating some tensions that in the normal course would have played out in favour of the alliance led by Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena. The Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena was widely regarded as betraying its roots, while Ajit Pawar of the NCP was seen as betraying his uncle, the veteran politician Sharad Pawar, to join ranks with the BJP.

There is enough material to lead many observers to argue that people disapproved of how the Thackeray government was destabilised and toppled—MLAs kept in hiding in the BJP-ruled Gujarat and Assam, compounded by the way the Thackeray-Sena symbol was taken away and the way Pawar and his overwhelming influence were sought to be undermined. Ordinarily, none of this would fetch the BJP any votes, even with its superior money power, much-touted campaign machinery, or the RSS ground support. In fact, even supporters of the BJP are hard put to explain away the heavy-handed tactics used to unseat Uddhave Thackeray and Sharad Pawar. The only limited leeway that sympathisers tend to give to Shinde or Ajit Pawar is that they were coerced into breaking ranks under alleged threat of action by the Enforcement Directorate, which is now widely seen as working for the BJP. This only adds to negativity for the BJP.

It is no secret in Maharashtra that the BJP's toppling operation was led and masterminded by its leadership in New Delhi. It is also no secret that bitterness between the BJP leadership and Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minister escalated after the latter chose to break away from the BJP and align with the Congress. It is an admitted position that the BJP was out to teach him a lesson. The BJP leadership's Gujarat roots were seen to be responsible for further deepening the Maharashtra-Gujarat divide, which became a central theme of the Shiv Sena's campaign.

Adding fuel to the fire, the Gujarat-based Gautam Adani group, which has been building real estate projects in Mumbai, has bagged a controversial mega-contract for the redevelopment of Mumbai’s largest slum, Dharavi, and runs the Mumbai airport, became emblematic of what many saw as external encroachment on Maharashtra's identity. This sentiment clashes with the Assembly results: the BJP-Sena (Shinde)-NCP (Ajit Pawar) alliance won 230 of 288 seats, with the BJP alone securing 132 seats. Such is the sweep that there will be no Leader of the Opposition in Maharashtra this time. Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena's vote share plummeted to 9.96% from 16.72% in the Lok Sabha elections in June—a steep and puzzling decline.

The hunger strike protest by the senior and respected social activist Baba Adav, who is 95 years old, has added momentum to the allegations of misuse of EVMs, not to speak of the heavy use of money power. Adav sat at Phule Wada, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule’s home in Pune city, for the protest, signalling yet again that the agitation is a social-political one against the brazen use of muscle-money, and now the added charge of machine-led manipulation to deliver results at odds with the ground reality. The Election Commission is set to meet with a delegation later this week to discuss the huge questions raised on the number of people who voted, which grew in official records from 58.22% at 5 pm on polling day to 65.02% at 11:30 pm on the same day to 66.05% on the day of counting.

There is no denying that the changing numbers have dented the image of the Election Commission, and the credibility of the election process itself under the EVM system is increasingly coming under strain. This is a blow to democratic systems, processes, and traditions in India. It makes India, the once shining democracy, look less like one. It indicates that we have weakened, not strengthened, our systems in the last 75 years. We are at a stage that the claimed advantages of the EVMs have become irrelevant in the face of the risks the EVMs bring. It is time to discard the machines and go back to a fully physical, paper-led system—the tried and tested paper and rubber stamp process of casting ballots and counting them one by one. Nothing is achieved by the ease of voting or speed of results if this speed lands us faster in the wrong place—as indeed it appears to have. To defend India, we must now destroy the EVMs.

(The writer is a journalist and faculty member at SPJIMR; Syndicate: The Billion Press)