Some aspects of the Maharashtra 2024 elections & results thereof:

Here are some key aspects of this result

The Female watershed has been breached

The Maharashtra & Jharkhand elections are the first elections in Independent India which saw the female vote move from being a deciding factor, to being a dictating factor.

And it’s a secular trend – across both Maharashtra and Jharkhand. The Laadki Bahin scheme in Maharashtra & the Maiyya scheme in Jharkhand.

First things first, I do not consider this money being given to the females the same as a political dole. Whether the money that goes to males is spent for the family or not (in a majority of the cases – not), the money that goes to the females is definitely spent on the family, on their children, on starting some small home-based business, etc. Many journalists and surveyors have already come forth and shared their stories / interviews with females who have done just the same. Both in Maha & Jharkhand. This money given to females is almost like injecting the money into the economy, which should show up in the growth numbers of both the states as well.

Further, for too long females have been underrepresented in the Indian political discourse. And that is despite, India having been led by a female during 1966 – 1984 (except between 1977-1980) and 2004-2014 (anyone who wants to tell me that Sonia Gandhi wasn’t India’s real PM, I own a Taj Mahal in Agra to sell to you).

From elected representatives to ministers to subjects of poll campaigns to even those sampled in exit polls, opinion polls and post-poll studies – females are severely underrepresented. However, the last 15 years have started to see that change.

Today, females account for more voters than men. Before the end of this decade, there will be a minimum of 33% females in the Lok Sabha. These 2 things combined will give the Indian political milieu a distinct female hue, making the female as important as the male in the Indian political discourse, which IMO is a great thing.

Unprecedented scale of Mahayuti’s landslide – Mahayuti won 138 seats with 50%-plus vote share, MVA only 16

Man to man marking – BJP, Shiv Sena & NCP hammered Congress, SS-UBT & NCP-SP respectively.

Now let’s get down specifically to BJP’s incredible performance:
BJP contested – 149
Won – 132
Lost – 17
SR – 88.5%
Vote Share – 26.77%
Contested seat Vote Share – 51.74%. WOW! 😲

Head to Head of BJP vs MVA:
BJP vs Cong – 65-11 (85% win rate)
BJP vs UBT – 30-3 (91% win rate)
BJP vs NCP(SP) – 34-2 (94% win rate)
BJP vs CPI(M) – 1-1
BJP vs SP – 4-0
BJP vs PWPI – 2-0
BJP vs CPI – 1-0
The rest of BJP’s seats were friendly fights within the Mahayuti

Some other points:
– A whopping 56% of seat BJP had 50%+ vote share and 75% seat above 45%. This is a real tsunami.
– Of the 17 seats BJP lost, it lost 4 by less than 2000 votes of which they lost 1 seat by just 208 votes.
– In all the seats they contested, BJP came 1st or 2nd. BJP came 3rd in NO seats.
– All other parties have lost deposits in some seats but BJP lost none.
– BJP has not gone below 30% voteshare in any seat.
– 17 BJP candidates fought on SS(12), NCP (4) & RPI (1) symbols, winning 9. 7 won on SS symbol & 2 on NCP symbol.

Raj Thackeray to Uddhav’s rescue.
The number of votes polled for MNS is more than the margin of victory of the SS(UBT) in 9 seats, just in Mumbai – Worli, Mahim, Bandra East, Kalina, Vikhroli, Jogeshwari East, Kalina, Dindoshi, Versova.

Congress’s Rout

Congress contested – 102
Won – 16
Lost – 86
SR – 15.7%
Vote Share – 12.42%

Balasaheb Thorat, a claimant for the CM’s chair lost.

Congress lost Karad South, which they have held since independence.

WHY? Causes of this result

IMO, some of the causes of this result are:

1. Direct Cash Transfer Schemes, including Laadki Bahin
There was a 6% jump in voting percentages by women between the 2024 Lok Sabha and the 2024 Maharashtra state elections, nearly all of this additional vote went to the Mahayuti. Some impact of that can be seen in how across the board the shift of votes was…

2. Infrastructure Development across Maharashtra (esp Mumbai), with the roads, birdges, metro and Samruddhi mahamarg.

Some of the other factors, which aren’t spoken about as much are:

3. OBC consolidation amidst BJP’s work & getting the Jarange-Patil Maratha agitation to backfire

People are finally fed up of this Maratha reservation nonsense. At one end, they pride themselves as being the lineage of Chhatrapati Shivaji and on the other end, they ‘agitate’ for reservation. First reservation was outside of the OBC block. When the courts struck it down, now they want reservation inside the OBC block. This led to a massive counter-consolidation by the OBCs in favour of the BJP, primarily in Marathwada and Western Maharashtra, but also generally across the state.

There are some 60 sub-OBC communities and BJP created a separate ‘council’ for each of them, meeting each of them and finding out what are the unique needs / requirements and cultural / community needs of each of them.

That is how BJP has been able to get over 60% of the OBC vote, adding many more to their original ‘Madhav’ coalition (Mali – Dhangar – Vanjari).

4. ‘Vote Jihad’ ka jawab – Batenge to katenge / Ek hai to safe hai has worked

During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, there were clear edicts put out by those ‘running the mosques’, to their flock to vote, and vote against BJP. These edicts came with threats of excommunication from the mosque community if their finger did not have the post-voting mark. This led to a massive consolidation of Muslim vote against the BJP.

This was well noted by most people, esp in Mumbai and this time round, there was a counter-consolidation against that. Hindus made sure that they voted on a war footing to counter any similar consolidation from occurring this time around leading to a counter-consolidation against the ‘minority-veto’.

The public calls & fatwas from several maulanas – Mr Nomani, etc a few days before voting this time around only made the issue more visible and reinforced that counter-consolidation.

This is the image that was one of the most widely circulated images to get people to understand how the minority veto has come into play in Lok Sabha 2024.

5. Kirtankars & Warkaris aided the tsunami for BJP in Maharashtra
Warkaris and Kirtankars, elements of the Bhakti Movement, who hold huge sway in Marathi society, helped consolidate Hindu votes, brought about a silent movement by spreading the ‘Hindu unity’ message across the state.

The ‘Sajag Raho’ (Be Vigilant) campaign of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), which involved 110 organisations, saw Warkaris, kirtankars and bhajankaris being roped in to spread the message of Hindu-unity across Maharashtra. This also saw active participation from top BJP leadership.

In July, the Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti government established the Mukhya Mantri Warkari Sampradaya Mahamandal, allocating Rs 50 crore as start-up capital for the corporation. Additionally, the state announced a fund of Rs 20,000 per dindi (pilgrim group), starting this year.

6. Rahul Gandhi & his Ayodhya taunts

Rahul Gandhi & Akhilesh Yadav parading around with Avdhesh Prasad Yadav, calling him ‘Ayodhya ka Raja’ and taunting the BJP with the “Ayodhya haar gaye” jibe, really got to people. Especially when he said it in parliament. That mocking really got to a lot of people.

Each & every BJP worker had those videos on their phone to show to people when they were canvassing / campaigning, and they could see the anger in the people when they witnessed that taunting.

And finally…

7. Buyer’s Remorse post Lok Sabha 2024

There was massive buyer’s remorse for many people for their votes during the 2024 Lok Sabha election. So many people I know were pissed off that Congress did so well in Maharashtra and Akhilesh Yadav did so well in UP. I even noted buyer’s remorse (even in Mumbai which was esp shocking) for their decision to give Uddhav Thackeray so many MPs.

It was a combination of ALL of the above which gave the BJP-lead Mahayuti a massive 3/4th mandate and gave BJP it’s largest number of seats ever won.

Jai Hind!🇮🇳
Jai Maharashtra!🚩

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And finally…

P.S. My personal man-of-the-match 😜 is the great genius Sanjay Raut! May he never retire!

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