Lessons from Maharashtra, Jharkhand election results

With the Maharashtra election ending in a massive, landslide win for the Mahayuti and a very strong revival for the BJP, it will hold very big implications for national politics and governance. Sure, Jharkhand has gone against the NDA, but by way of political significance, there is no comparison. Apart from Maharashtra being the industrial and commercial centre of the country, it also put brakes on the BJP’s national juggernaut in the Lok Sabha elections. A lot of that pressure will now ease.

Overall, what does the Maharashtra election signify at the national level?

Kamandal with benefits beats Mandal

The opposition found resonance and success in the “samvidhaan khatre mein hai” slogan during the Lok Sabha elections. It continued with that into the assembly election as well, along with the call for a caste survey to tell the deprived castes that they would also be counted. The ruling coalition went in strong with the welfare/benefit schemes in the state along with the hard Hindutva rhetoric of the BJP with ‘batenge toh katenge’ and ‘ek hain to safe hain’. Voters across caste and community lines saw this as a more attractive option.

This will also mean that the BJP will double down on that formula in coming elections, contradicting the expectation that the 2024 general election result was a vote to soften that rhetoric.

Establishes RSS supremacy in BJP

The Sangh has shown who is boss: thousands of meetings across the state, mobilising voters, getting back OBC/ST/ST votes which had drifted away in the general election. It was involved in the planning and execution stages throughout. This not only puts an end to the strong (and largely true) buzz about a rift between the RSS and the BJP, but it also means the Sangh has shown who the boss is. BJP insiders say that the RSS functionaries were instrumental in rejecting even Devendra Fadnavis’ ticket suggestions, showing the influence it wielded in this election. This involvement restarted in the Haryana elections and given the Maharashtra elections, will continue.

This gives the BJP a massive leg up against any opposition, most of which has virtually no ground-level machinery to rival this. 

Baba is the new daddy of electioneering

The Maharashtra result is partly due to the campaigning that the UP chief minister did. He is the one who imported the 'katenge-batenge' call from UP to Maharashtra and addressed more than a dozen rallies.

Yogi’s demand as a campaigner was high in the BJP, but this success will increase it further, especially with his clear and unapologetic Hindutva image.

Modi magic and elections

A direct impact of Yogi’s increasing popularity could be on PM Modi’s electioneering image. He remains by far the most popular politician in India with unparalleled connections with the voter. But given the fact that he was out of the country as the Maharashtra campaign was peaking, his impact could well come into question.

Can the BJP win even without Modi’s 100 per cent attention? That question will certainly be asked, especially after the Lok Sabha result.

Anti-incumbency under cloud

Maharashtra certainly firms up that view. Anti-incumbency is now becoming less and less relevant in elections. A strong campaign with a focused narrative embellished with some benefits for the voters seems to be beating incumbency in state after state, and even nationally. It is not even about replacing elected members now – the BJP repeated a large number of its MLAs in Maharashtra and that had virtually no impact on the result.

The role of money

Elections are now becoming entirely transactional. The voter wants something tangible in her pocket or has to be shown the threat of something being taken away. The space for ideology is being replaced by welfare benefits: whoever giveth, taketh the vote. It also means that parties will have to spend more money on campaigning.

The BJP, which has massive reserves, for example strategically spent money on its workers, giving local karyakartas scooters to keep track of voters at every booth. It will be tough for an opposition, bereft of that kind of cash, to compete there.

The opposition’s campaign

Victimhood doesn’t work anymore. No one used victimhood better than Modi himself when he painted himself as the outsider who was targeted by the ‘elite’. The chai-wala image didn’t work in 2024. Both Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray went into the election with their victim card. But the voters refused to encash it for them. The Congress on the other hand, led by Rahul Gandhi, spent a lot of time talking about either the caste census/samvidhaan or, more fatally, attacking Adani Inc. (Ambanis were spared this time).

Making a corporation the enemy when the problem on the ground is more about inflation or jobs or agricultural crisis simply does not cut it. It has repeatedly failed. The opposition, led by the largest party the Congress, really needs to fit the rhetoric to the situation and not a one-size-fits-all campaign

Vindictive politics doesn’t work

See the result in Jharkhand. A state where the BJP thought it was in a good position was taken away because of the arrest of the sitting chief minister. Hemant Soren became a hero. His wife who campaigned on his behalf when he was in jail became a folk hero of sorts. The same thing happened with Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra. The voter is smart enough to know when they see high-handedness – and they vote against that.

This result will give a big boost to the BJP-led central government’s agenda. Not only because Maharashtra is a revenue source but also because politically it puts the party head and shoulders above any other. If there was any doubt or dithering in the minds of allies and friendly parties about giving support in Parliament to bills, they would have to do some really hard thinking and calculating about either trying to extract their pound of flesh or opposing. It will strengthen Modi’s administrative hand very strongly.