Reverse Polarisation Affects Thackerays
Voting concluded peacefully across all 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra. After the polls closed on Thursday evening, exit polls immediately predicted a landslide victory for the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance: Reports
PUNE: A man enrolled as a voter in Mumbai reached the polling booth directly from neighboring Gujarat at 8 am on January 15. He cast his vote in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and returned to Gujarat in the evening the same day.
He claimed that he came to Mumbai only to defeat Uddhav-Raj Thackeray combine in the civic body polls, highlighting the degree of polarisation witnessed in this election.
The BMC has been the stronghold of the Thackeray family for 30 years. However, after the Shiv Sena was split, Uddav Thackeray Raj Thackeray, once rivals, joined hands to win the BMC polls by reigniting the Marathi Manus versus North Indian controversy.
However, the elections witnessed a strong reverse polarisation by non-Marathi voters and the BMC slipped from the Thackeray family's hands. In politics, reverse polarisation is a phenomenon where the attempts by one group to consolidate a specific voting bloc inadvertently cause a stronger and opposing consolidation among a different, often larger group.
Voting concluded peacefully across all 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra. After the polls closed on Thursday evening, exit polls immediately predicted a landslide victory for the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance. These projections were confirmed on Friday as the results showed the BJP and the Shiv Sena (Shinde) combine sweeping the BMC and other key corporations.
In Pune, the NCP-Ajit Pawar faction contested the polls against its alliance partners the BJP and Shiv Sena (Shinde) as the deputy chief minister joined hands with his uncle, and veteran leader Sharad Pawar, and decided to regain their old stronghold in the region. On account of this, tense silence was witnessed among political workers and voters in the region. The low voter turnout was a clear indication of lack of enthusiasm in the polls. In Pune civic body polls, the BJP targeted a big victory with two already won unopposed. The Uddhav-Raj Thackeray combine did not do better in this region.
In 2012, Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) won 40 seats out of a total of 122 seats in the Nasik Municipal Corporation, and they came to power with the support of the BJP. This time, Raj Thackeray was trying to wrest the Nashik Municipal Corporation from the BJP but the current polarisation and reverse polarisation severely affected their prospects.
The MNS leaders, however, have openly issued statements against North Indians. The businessmen and leaders of the area still recall the situation in 2008 when several industries were forced to halt functioning due to violence by the MNS workers against North-Indians. Later, leaders of the state openly apologised and invited migrant workers to come back to work, assuring them of security and strict action against culprits.
In Nagpur Municipal Corporation, which is also the home town of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the BJP was in a comfortable situation and the party won the two-thirds majority.