Maharashtra: A Congress minded state?

Sharad Pawar once said in an interview that Maharashtra is a “Congress minded state”. He meant that the Maharashtrian is by temperament a voter of secular ideology and is not very attracted to Hindutva. Is that true?

If we look at history, it is true that the Congress has totally dominated the state. Of the state’s 17 chief ministers, only two (three if we count Mr Pawar’s first term in 1978) have been from outside the Congress Party. The Congress has been defeated in Maharashtra’s Legislative Assembly elections only once, and that was in 1995, when the Shiv Sena-BJP governed for a full five years.

What will happen later this year, when the state elects its 13th Vidhan Sabha? In the Lok Sabha elections that have just gone, Maharashtra gave Congress and its ally the Nationalist Congress Party the worst defeat of its history. Out of the 48 seats (Maharashtra has the second largest number of seats after Uttar Pradesh), Congress could win only two. The NCP won only four. If we were to apply the Lok Sabha results on Assembly constituencies, the BJP and Shiv Sena would win over 220 out of the 288 seats.

Is it possible for such a result in the most pro-Congress of the major states in India? Let us look at the local factors. The major issue overall is the anger against the state government. Some of the same problems that infected the United Progressive Alliance government also made the Congress-NCP government sick. The corruption especially of the real estate sector in Mumbai was of such a scale that the media, even though it benefits from a lot of advertising from builders, could not ignore it. Scams like Adarsh, which were local stories, became national headlines. To some extent this was a problem of perception.

A report in 2013 by the Institute of Competitiveness put Maharashtra at No. 1 as the most innovation-driven economy of India, ahead of Gujarat. Another newspaper report in September 2013 again compared Maharashtra favourably with Gujarat. It said Maharashtra (about Rs 12 lakh crore) and Gujarat (Rs 6 lakh crore) together accounted for 20 per cent of Indian’s gross domestic product. Maharashtra’s per capita income was Rs 95,339, while Gujarat’s was Rs 89,668. The faster growth of these two states is explained by a combination of natural resources and entrepreneurship of the people. Most of India’s imports and exports take place through the ports in these twostates.

And so Maharashtra was not totally mismanaged, but certainly we can say that Congress mismanaged perception. The constant and petty infighting between the Congress and the NCP, between various Maratha factions of the Congress, and between various leaders inside the NCP made things worse for the ruling party. On the other side, the rift between the Thackeray cousins has split the Marathi vote in Mumbai, but this did not damage the Shiv Sena much in the Lok Sabha. It will be more damaging in the Assembly elections. In the past, Raj Thackeray has performed quite well, taking about 20 per cent of the vote.

Meanwhile, Narendra Modi has not made any big mistakes and is going through a honeymoon phase, which is likely to continue for a few months at least. He is a terrific campaigner and will make a big difference in urban seats. There will be some damage to the BJP because of the loss of Gopinath Munde, but not much. The major issue might well be between the BJP and the Shiv Sena over the chief minister’s office.

It is difficult to see how the Congress and NCP will be able to avoid a thrashing. A historic two-thirds majority for BJP-Shiv Sena is possible and even likely in Maharashtra. And the Congress, which has ruled in an almost unbroken fashion since Independence, is likely to find itself in the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha in the same sorry state as it is today in the Lok Sabha. What Mr Pawar said about Maharashtra may have been true for the past, but it will change, at least for this election.