Success of Either Alliance in Maharashtra Depends on Seamless Transfer of Votes

13 seats go to polls on Monday in Maharashtra's final phase of voting. In 2019, the NDA had won all of them.

The electoral battle for Maharashtra enters its last leg today. In the fifth phase of voting, 13 seats of this state are in contention, while 35 have already voted.

Maharashtra, with its uthal puthal in the last five years, is a key battleground state where the INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc hopes to make a severe dent in the NDA's (National Democratic Alliance) tally, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeks to minimise its losses via an alliance with supportive factions of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (which have retained the original symbols of their respective parties).

Between the Eknath Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray factions of the Shiv Sena, the battle is over Balasaheb Thackeray’s legacy. A similar one is being fought between chacha (Sharad Pawar) and bhatija (Ajit Pawar) over whose faction is the real NCP. 

Crunching the Numbers

The NDA (BJP plus Shinde's Shiv Sena) had swept the state in both the 2014 and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

In the latter, the alliance won 41 of the 48 seats on offer. In terms of vote share, it bagged around 52 percent. The United Progressive Alliance (Sharad's NCP plus the Congress party plus Independents) got around 36 percent of the vote share.

With the Shiv Sena shifting to the UPA, forming the Maha Vikas Aghadi (Shiv Sena plus Congress plus the NCP) in the state, the balance turned clearly in its favour. With a split in both the Shiv Sena and the NCP, the BJP hopes to bridge the gap and gain the upper hand. However, regional parties in India are mostly family-controlled and there is a probability that supporters would back Uddhav rather than Shinde in an asli versus nakli type of contest.

The case of the NCP, however, is more complicated as the battle for ownership is between the two scions of the Pawar family.

While uncle Sharad is the founder of the party, nephew Ajit used to look after the party's matters.

The BJP hopes that Ajit's control over the organisation could help sway traditional NCP supporters, while the Sharad Pawar faction is banking on emotional connect. 

The BJP also hopes that the Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA) and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) contesting alone would cut into the Dalit and minority votes of the INDIA bloc.

Ultimately, the success of any alliance would depend upon a seamless transfer of votes between partners with minimum leakages.

Will minority voters of the Congress-NCP back the Shiv Sena (UBT) candidates? Will the Hindutva voters of the Shiv Sena (UBT) back the Congress-NCP?

Will the BJP voters back the candidates of Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit's NCP (in the latter's case, when there is a history of rivalry too)?

(Notes for the table above: Population numbers above are approximate. Navneet Rana won the elections backed by the UPA and later switched her allegiance to the NDA. Her vote share is considered as UPA vote share.)

In 2019, the NDA enjoyed around 59 percent of the Maratha community's vote share and 66 percent of the same among OBCs, giving it a lead of 24 percent in overall vote share against UPA at the time.

The Maratha agitation issue, and the situation it has created with the rest of the OBCs on the reservations, could complicate matters for the NDA. It is unlikely that it retains the support of both the communities as earlier. 

The memory of the lathi charge on protesting Marathas is still fresh in the minds of voters, especially in the Marathwada region, and they are reportedly itching to take revenge.

Both sides have also witnessed intense negotiations over ticket distribution.

From the NDA, the BJP is contesting on 28, the Shiv Sena (Shinde) on 15, the NCP (Ajit Pawar) on five and Others on one seat.

From the INDIA bloc, the Shiv Sena (UBT) is contesting on 21, the Congress party on 17, and the NCP (Sharad Pawar) on only five seats.

Of the 17 seats which the Congress party is contesting, it is facing BJP in 15 of them. This is where the saffron party enjoys a psychological edge because of its overall 90 percent plus strike rate in direct contests against the grand old party. 

The legacy war is being fought on 15 seats — 13 seats between the Shinde versus Uddhav factions of the Shiv Sena and two seats between the Pawar factions of the NCP.

These 15 seats could well decide who enjoys the traditional voter's support of both parties, answering the question — which party is asli, and which is nakli? 

(Note for the table above: SHS stands for Shiv Sena)

A Closer Look at the Fifth Phase's 13 Seats

Of the 13 seats that go to polls on Monday, 10 of them are in the Mumbai-Thane region, a traditional stronghold of the Shiv Sena.

The NDA had won all 13 seats in 2019, ie, the Shiv Sena (before the split) won seven and the BJP won six. After the split, five of these Sena MPs joined the Shinde faction, while two have remained with Uddhav.

In these 10 seats, the BJP and Shinde Sena are contesting on five seats each, the Uddhav Sena on seven, the Congress on two, and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar on one. In Kalyan, Thane, Mumbai North West, Mumbai South Central, and Mumbai South, it's a Sena versus Sena battle. 

High-profile candidates like Piyush Goyal (Mumbai North), Ujjwal Nikam (Mumbai North West), Anil Desai (Mumbai South Central), Arvind Sawant (Mumbai South), and Shrikant Shinde (Kalyan) are in the fray.

While Mumbai is considered a stronghold of the Thackeray family, Thane has a solid support base for Shinde.

The voter turnout will be closely watched in these seats, which has been historically low, as whichever party implements the “get out to vote” strategy better, may have an edge over the other. 

In these seats, it is commonly believed that while Marwari, Gujarati, and north Indian community voters are inclined towards the NDA, the Marathi manoos and minority voters are supportive of the INDIA bloc.

(Amitabh Tiwari is an independent political commentator and can be reached at @politicalbaaba on X (formerly Twitter). This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)