The BJP has swept a state that is not a traditional bastion and it has also raced ahead of its allies, while Congress has comprehensively frittered away the considerable advantage its alliance had registered in June.
Editorial
Nov 23, 2024 20:04 IST First published on: Nov 23, 2024 at 19:50 IST
On June 4, the much reduced tally of the BJP-led alliance from Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha result had contributed significantly to the BJP’s diminished numbers at the Centre, stopping it well short of a majority, making it dependent, after 10 years of single-party dominance, on its allies. Now, nearly six months later, the story has reversed — dramatically. The BJP has swept a state that is not a traditional bastion and it has also raced ahead of its allies, while Congress has comprehensively frittered away the considerable advantage its alliance had registered in June. The scale and spread of the BJP’s victory, and the extent of the Congress downsizing in Maharashtra in this assembly election may be due to several factors. But above all, they testify to this: The BJP’s ability to both reiterate and reinvent itself, especially after a setback. And Congress’s inability to even capitalise on victory.
While the BJP-led Mahayuti evidently drew lessons from its LS debacle, and rearranged its political-electoral-organisational strategy, the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi remained frozen and unmoving, over-reading its LS tally, investing neither in new ideas or fresh faces, doing nothing to keep pace or to build on its own good showing. Going ahead from here, and as Parliament re-opens on Monday, the BJP has earned its more confident stride, while Congress is back in the familiar bind of being the receptacle of the political currents that have been worked up by its political opponent.
Ahead of this election in Maharashtra, on paper, the Congress-led MVA had things going for it. Palpable farmer distress, with the state’s main crops, soyabean and cotton, selling far below the MSP, was given a sharper edge by the double-digit food inflation at 10.9 per cent, going up to 42.2 per cent for vegetables. Unemployment was taking a visible toll across the state’s rural and urban belts. The “tod phod (destruction)” of parties in which the BJP had played a prominent role — this was the first assembly contest after the splitting of Shiv Sena and NCP — had had a fallout in terms of increased voter alienation from party politics, often narrowing the calculus down to individual candidates.
Looking at this, perhaps, the BJP drew up a response, or set of responses, to cobble together larger wholes — it sought to rally women through the Ladki Bahin Yojana; it rebuilt its bridges with the RSS; paid greater attention to the consolidation and representation of OBCs through targeted schemes and selection of candidates; and sought to energise its Hindutva base with the rhetoric of polarisation couched in terms of “caste unity”. Congress, by all accounts, did little more than hope that its slogan of “Constitution in danger,” that had struck sparks, especially among sections of the Dalits in the LS polls, would, along with its insistent refrain on caste census, again shore up its prospects and fell the BJP.
While Congress has to head back to the drawing board yet again, in Maharashtra, the winner also has challenges. The generosity of the people’s mandate casts a greater responsibility on the BJP. It must ensure that the resource-rich state, home to the business capital of the country — Maharashtra accounts for almost 14 per cent of India’s GDP — forges ahead, there is no backsliding. The new BJP-led government must draw firm lines on corruption, for instance, that is perceived to be rising. It must ensure that the hopes and expectations that have brought it back to power with a decisive majority are respected.
Its task is cut out: Managing the state’s fiscal health given its commitment to welfare schemes; addressing the grievances of the Maratha community; building on the infrastructure upgrade in Mumbai and beyond; tackling agrarian distress over procurement. The comprehensive sweep of the victory must reflect in a large-hearted government that works for all, and includes those who did not vote for it.
