Maharashtra election results: Maratha quota, loan waiver and water scheme yield big gains for BJP-Shiv Sena

For over a decade, Vidarbha region has tragically been known as 'suicide capital' owing to farm distress. The BJP and Shiv Sena won massive support here in 2014, but the distress continued, in part due to three droughts in five years. This was supposed to sink the saffron allies and cost them most of the 10 seats in this belt. Meanwhile, a strong Maratha agitation for a quota raged for over two years.That rage in western Maharashtra, too, threatened to damage the ruling alliance's Lok Sabha prospects.
Then why did both eastern and western Maharashtra stand by the BJP-Sena combine?
In Vidarbha, one factor is the Jalyukt Shivar Yojana, an ambitious irrigation scheme pushed by CM Fadnavis who belongs to this belt. The scheme took off with a bang and then seemed to falter, after a couple of years, as complaints against contractors and officials began streaming in, but its progress has, the results show, won the government serious perception points.
The Rs34,000 crore farm loan waiver scheme too was supposed to have been a victim of poor implementation. Yet the nature and extent of disbursal seems to have satisfied most beneficiaries, especially as it comes hand-in-hand with the Jalyukt Shivar scheme which has been seen as an effort to end the loan waiver cycle that commenced in 2008-2009.
The Maratha quota stir did pose a grave political danger as the community forms close to 30% of the state's population and has moreover had a 'mai-baap' in the Congress and NCP establishment which has produced a majority of Maratha CMs (10) and legislators since 1960. But the grant of the quota in government jobs and education sent a positive message among the restive Marathas, especially the younger lot, who have also wondered about how and why the political and numerical dominance of their community has not translated into benefits across the board, with both power and clout still concentrated in the hands of just a few Maratha families. The BJP-led state government's move to back the quota in court after its applicability for PG medical admissions was challenged too has been perceived more as a declaration of intent than mere expediency.
PM Modi and BJP president Amit Shah's acceptance of Maratha political families from the Congress-NCP into the BJP fold as well as their consistent targeting of the Pawar-Chavan-Patil political order, with all nine seats of western Maharashtra, including Baramati, having been fiercely contested, also sent across a message that these fights were in earnest. The BJP itself felt partly emboldened to put up such a fight due to its huge success in local body elections in western Maharashtra since 2014 which indicated that the young generation of Marathas was yearning for change from the politics of patronage centered around sugar cooperatives and poll-eve handouts. Besides, BJP's promise of building a Shivaji memorial in the Arabian sea and Rs6,000 crore declared for restoring Shivaji's long-neglected forts seem to have helped forge an emotional connect.
The Congress and NCP's lack of a credible leadership and failure to offer policy solutions and alternatives to issues further helped in creating a pro-incumbency atmosphere, observers feel.