A Congress-yukt Maharashtra, and meltdown of the ruling Mahayuti

The results of the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra have two key takeaways apart from an obvious one—the meltdown of the ruling ‘Mahayuti’ or the grand alliance led by the BJP. The Congress, which was at its lowest ebb in the 2019 general elections and won just one seat in the state—where it was born as the Indian National Congress back in 1885—has made a swashbuckling return, notching up 13 wins.

The polls were the first test of the popular mandate after the splits in the Shiv Sena (June 2022), which toppled the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) regime under Uddhav Thackeray, and the Nationalist Congress Party (July 2023). Hence, they were seen as a referendum on which the two rival factions of the two parties deserved the status of being the ‘real’ Shiv Sena and NCP.

Congress revival

The Congress, which had won two seats from Maharashtra in 2014 and just one in 2019, emerged as the proverbial dark horse in 2024 by winning 13 seats, the highest tally in the state. A party rebel also won from western Maharashtra. In Chandrapur, Pratibha Dhanorkar of the Congress emerged as a giant killer by defeating forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar. Former MLA Dr Kalyanrao Kale defeated Union minister of state Raosaheb Danve Patil from Jalna.

Congress nominees also won from Ramtek, Bhandara-Gondia, Gadchiroli-Chimur, Latur, Solapur, Nanded, Kolhapur, Kolhapur, Mumbai North Central and Amravati. In Mumbai North Central, former minister and Mumbai Congress chief Varsha Gaikwad won a nail-biting contest against advocate Ujjwal Nikam of the BJP. In Sangli, Congress rebel Vishal Patil, who is the grandson of former chief minister and party stalwart Vasantdada Patil, trumped the BJP’s two-term MP Sanjaykaka Patil and wrestler Chandrahar Patil of ally Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray).

“We lack pan-Maharashtra leaders in the Congress; despite this, the campaign was carried at the local level by leaders like Satej (Bunty) Patil (Kolhapur), Yashomati Thakur (Amravati), Amit Deshmukh (Latur) and Vishwajeet Kadam (Sangli),” said a senior Congress leader.

The sweetest revenge for the party came from Nanded, where the Congress had been on the backfoot after the defection of former chief minister Ashok Chavan to the BJP, whose nominee Vasantrao Chavan trounced BJP MP Prataprao Patil Chikhalikar. A Mahayuti leader said the electoral campaign of the Congress had been taken over by the masses, who took the lead in canvassing and raising funds.

Back in 2014, Chavan and Rajiv Satav (Hingoli) were the only victors for the Congress from Maharashtra. However, five years later, Chavan was defeated by Chikhalikar due to the presence of a Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) nominee in the fray.

Vijay Chormare, journalist and political analyst, pointed out that the Congress notching up the highest victories in Maharashtra would also alter the power dynamics within the Opposition MVA. The Shiv Sena (UBT) had wrested Lok Sabha seats like Sangli, Mumbai North West and Mumbai South Central from the Congress. Now, the Congress will get an upper hand in bargaining for seats in the assembly polls due this year, and will refuse to relinquish its strongholds.

The ‘real’ Shiv Sena and NCP

The Lok Sabha elections were pitched as a popular referendum on which of the two factions controls the legacy of the ‘real’ Shiv Sena and NCP. The Sena (UBT) has scored 10 wins, more than the Shinde Sena’s six. The Election Commission had granted the undivided Shiv Sena’s bow-and-arrow and the undivided NCP’s clock symbol to the Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP, respectively.

“For our party, the real battle was not against the BJP, but the Shinde Sena,” said a senior leader of the Shiv Sena (UBT), adding that they had emerged trumps over Shinde. “This is a win-win for usâ€æ We are reviving ourselves. As a regional party, we had few stakes in the Lok Sabha polls. The real battle for us lies in the state assembly. In such a situation, our numbers will serve as a morale-booster and also stem the defections to Shinde’s ranks,” he added, stating that there was a chance that Shinde would be marginalised by its senior ally BJP.

The swashbuckling performance of the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) against the lacklustre show of the rival NCP has settled the question of which one being the ‘real’ faction of the NCP. “The popular sentiment seems to be against Ajit dada,” noted a source close to the Pawars. A source from Baramati said the defeat of Ajit’s wife Sunetra Pawar indicated that traditional BJP voters in constituencies like Khadakwasla, who were expected to carry the day for her, had not voted for the NCP.

However, Chormare said it was not the Lok Sabha but the assembly polls which would reveal which was the real Shiv Sena and NCP as the number of seats involved was significantly more. “But these (Lok Sabha) results will serve as a morale-booster. This is a warming up for the assembly elections,” he added.

There is, however, worry for the Shiv Sena (UBT) despite its electoral success in Mumbai and Maharashtra at large. The party has faced a shock defeat in Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, where its two-term MP Vinayak Raut lost to rival Narayan Rane of the BJP. In neighboring Raigad, the NCP’s Sunil Tatkare retained his seat against former Union minister Anant Geete of the Shiv Sena (UBT). This effectively means the Shiv Sena (UBT) has been wiped out of the Konkan belt. A bulk of the Marathi-speakers in Mumbai hail from Konkan.

Sources said this indicated that the BJP had made inroads into the Konkani voters, especially the OBCs, something the urbane, cosmopolitan leadership was unable to respond to. In Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), the Sena (UBT)’s old war horse Chandrakant Khaire ended up at number three in a contest where Sandipan Bhumare of the Shiv Sena won. Aurangabad is a stronghold of the undivided Shiv Sena. The Maratha votes crystallised around Bhumare rather than Khaire, a Dalit.

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