NEW DELHI: The countdown for the high-stakes assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand has begun with the Election Commission on Tuesday announcing dates for voting in the two states. While Maharashtra will vote on November 20, Jharkhand will see two-phase polling on November 13 and 20. The results for both the states will be out on November 23.
After registering convincing victories in Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh and riding on the back of its impressive show in Haryana, the BJP-led National Democractic Alliance (NDA) will go all out to end the year 2024 on a winning note.The opposition INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc, on the other hand, would hope that Haryana shocker was just a Congress-inflicted hiccup and it won’t wash away their Lok Sabha gains.
‘Maha grudge’ battle
The Maharashtra electoral battle is all set to be one of the keenest this year. The state’s politics has seen a lot of turbulence in the last 5 years – with allies becoming political foes and parties splitting down in the middle leading to changed power equations. There is a lot at stake for both the ruling Mahayuti and opposition’s Maha Vikas Aghadi.
The BJP and the undivided Shiv Sena had contested the 2019 assembly election as allies and had won a decisive mandate. The BJP had won 105 seats and the Shiv Sena 56. However, fight over the chief minister’s post saw Uddhav Thackeray quit the NDA and join hands with NCP and Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). The MVA went on to form the government under Uddhav’s leadership.
In June 2022, Eknath Shinde led a rebellion against Uddhav Thackeray and walked out of the party with most of the MLAs. He joined hands with the BJP to become the chief minister of Maharashtra and eventually got recognition as the orginal Shiv Sena. A year later, Sharad Pawar’s NCP met with the same fate with his nephew Ajit Pawar leading the rebellion. The NCP also split eventually and Ajit Pawar joined the ruling Mahayuti as deputy chief minister.
The 2024 Lok Sabha elections was the first electoral contest in the state after the changed power equations in the state. And the verdict was decisively in favour of the Maha Vikas Agadhi which won 30 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The Lok Sabha results gave the MVA both hope and confidence of defeating the Mahayuti again in the assembly elections. But as the Haryana elections show, Lok Sabha success is no guarantee of victory in state elections. The Eknath Shinde government has taken a leaf out of Nayab Singh Saini’s success story template and has gone on an overdrive to woo all sections ahead of the assembly elections. Whether it can replicate Haryana BJP’s success story or not we will know on November 23.
The MVA will also hope to learn important lessons from the Haryana mandate – including the consequences of division of votes against the BJP. Confident after their Lok Sabha success, the three MVA allies have been struggling to arrive at a seat-sharing deal – with each party trying not to concede too much of space. The Haryana results have surely dampened Congress’s spirits and the party may have lost some of its bargaining powers. The Maharashtra results will be important for the future of not just MVA but also the INDIA bloc, which has struggled to stay intact.
BJP vs Hemant Soren in Jharkhand
In Jharkhand, the BJP-led NDA, which has been in the opposition for the last five years, will faceoff with a confident Hemant Soren-led opposition alliance. The BJP has four former chief ministers in its ranks. Ironically though, the party’s campaign in the state is being spearheaded by Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. They have gone hammer and tongs on the issue of Bangladeshi infiltrators threatening the existence of tribals in the state and their promise of implementing the NRC. While these issues may resonate in some of the districts bordering Bengal, it remains to be seen how much of an impact it makes in the rest of the state.
Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, on the other hand, has played his cards well till now. He has managed to return as chief minister after having to quit the post for a short jail term after the ED arrested him in an alleged money laundering case related to land scam. However, Soren has managed to use the case and the jail term to play the victim card and accuse the BJP of targeting him because he is a tribal. The Congress in the state lacks mass leaders and also a strong leadership and hence would continue to play second fiddle to the JMM.
In the last assembly elections, the BJP lost despite leading a government in the state for five years. While the BJP could win only 25 seats, the JMM emerged as the single largest party with 30 assembly seats and went on to form the government with the help of its allies including the Congress. The JMM-led INDIA bloc made some gains in the Lok Sabha elections as well winning 5 out of the 14 Lok Sabha seats. It will hope to consolidate these gains further and return to power in the state.
The results of Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly elections will decide which of the two alliances take the pole position as they brace for the 2025 electoral battles starting from Delhi. A win for the BJP will further consolidate its Haryana gains while a win for the INDIA alliance will help the opposition bloc emerge from its Haryana shock.