Head-on | Maharashtra is bellwether for the 2024 Lok Sabha election

Maharashtra sends 48 MPs to the Lok Sabha, second only to Uttar Pradesh. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the BJP (23) and Shiv Sena (18) won 41 of the state’s 48 seats. In the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, they repeated the performance, again sweeping 41 seats.

The events playing out in Mumbai, Guwahati and the Supreme Court will resonate through the slew of Assembly elections due in 2022 (Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat) and 2023 (principally Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh). The BJP’s recent bypoll victories in Samajwadi Party strongholds Azamgarh and Rampur are straws in the wind.

If Eknath Shinde’s rebellion is successful in the face of a determined pushback by the Thackerays, it will send a message to Rajasthan where Sachin Pilot could try to finally cut himself loose from Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. More worryingly for the Opposition, it will weaken the Congress just when an anti-BJP front was planning to use the Maharashtra MVA model on a pan-India level.

The Maha Vikas Agadhi (MVA) model is politically seductive. It justifies how three parties with divergent ideologies can work together. The Shiv Sena remains a Hindutva-first party. The NCP is a Muslim-leaning party which has consistently mocked Hindutva. The third wheel of the MVA tricycle is the Congress which despises Hindutva even more viscerally than the NCP.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has frequently pointed to the three-party MVA government as an example of how ideologically disparate parties can come together to form a stable government. It is the model she proposes for the 2024 Lok Sabha election with parties from Left to Right coming together to defeat the BJP.

If the MVA government unravels in Maharashtra, it will create a big hole in the Opposition’s pan-national theory. That is why a concerted effort has been launched to checkmate Eknath Shinde’s rebels.

The potential loser in the Maharashtra meltdown is the Congress. Losing a cash cow like Maharashtra just before a make-or-break Lok Sabha election will hurt a party already under pressure from internal dissent.

The Congress is in government in only two states: Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. It continues to be a junior alliance partner in Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu. Losing a toe-hold in Maharashtra will sting.

The Congress justified its presence in the MVA government in November 2019 despite its lifelong distaste for the Shiv Sena’s Hindutva and in the face of strong resistance from Rahul Gandhi. It took all of Sharad Pawar’s powers of persuasion to bring Sonia on board after weeks of back-and-forth parleys.

Rahul, however, was never fully reconciled to the alliance. He has not made a single trip to Mumbai to talk to his party’s MVA alliance partners, leaving that to local Congress leaders.

But while joining the MVA was a difficult decision for the Congress, leaving it if it unravels will ironically be worse. Once you get used to sleeping with the enemy and tasting power, getting out of bed becomes harder.

For the BJP, events in Maharashtra are playing to script. It is crucial for the party to restore itself to power in a key state like Maharashtra. Former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has emerged with an enhanced reputation. He will be extensively deployed in campaign strategies for upcoming elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha poll.

The attempt by KCR and others to form an anti-BJP front now becomes harder. The presidential poll has shown that non-UPA, non-NDA parties like the BSP, BJD and YSRCP are unlikely to join an Opposition front against the BJP.

The key man to watch remains is Sharad Pawar. He was instrumental in bringing the reluctant Gandhis on board with the Shiv Sena to form the MVA government in Maharashtra. The mild-mannered Uddhav Thackeray was prepared to resign last week following the Eknath Shinde-led rebellion but Pawar convinced him to fight.

One of rebel leader Shinde’s principal complaints is that the NCP and the Congress have benefitted in the MVA government at the Shiv Sena’s expense.

The NCP, unlike the Congress, doesn’t have a significant base outside Maharashtra. For Pawar, in order to pass his political legacy to daughter Supriya Sule, staying in power in the state is crucial.

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The alleged corruption by NCP ministers Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik, both of whom remain in prison, comes as no surprise to those who know the NCP’s links with Mumbai’s underbelly. For Pawar, losing the MVA government will be a devastating blow.

For the Thackerays, however, losing control of the Shiv Sena will be a bigger blow than losing the MVA government. The party is a cash cow.

For the BJP, pulling the strings behind the scenes will serve its purpose of cutting its opponents down to size, one by one, well before 2024.

The writer is editor, author and publisher. Views expressed here are personal.

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