Five takeaways from the Maharashtra mandate

1. Mahila Shakti: The woman voter has spoken and how. The Mahayuti government’s Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana which gives Rs 1,500 per month to women over the last four months has delivered a landslide victory to BJP and its coalition partners. The huge spurt in women voter turnout – a rise by over five percentage points compared to 2019 – was a clear indicator of the enthusiasm among women voters to show their support for a government which recognised their economic contribution and propped up their incomes. The sagacity of freebies can be debated by the pundits but for the poor voter reeling in debt, plummeting earnings and inflation, it does make a world of difference. After Madhya Pradesh's Ladli Behna Yojana, Maharashtra offers clinching proof.

2. A Fadnavis Resurgence: BJP has on its own steam come close to the halfway mark and Devendra Fadnavis is the frontrunner to be the Chief Minister. Once tipped to be in the reckoning for succeeding JP Nadda as the next BJP national president, Fadnavis’s fortunes are clearly on the upswing after nearly five years of sailing through choppy waters following Uddhav Thackeray’s November 2019 decision to part ways with the BJP. From swallowing humble pie as the five-day CM of Maharashtra between November 23 to 28, 2019, in the company of Ajit Pawar, and then being relegated to Eknath Shinde’s deputy after doing all the hard work of splitting the Shiv Sena and unseating the MVA, can the big BJP victory regain for him the numero uno position in Maharashtra or will the likes of Rahul Navrekar or Vinod Tawde pip him to the post?

3. Ajit Pawar's Future: The nephew may have won the battle of the NCPs against his Machiavellian uncle Sharad Pawar, cousin Supriya Sule and nephew Rohit Pawar, but his future in the Mahayuti rests precariously on how the BJP surveys the changed Maharashtra political scenario. BJP and Shiv Sena are comfortably past the halfway mark without needing the NCP and with BJP and Shinde Sena leaders certain to demand their pound of flesh in terms of ministerial berths, the Ajit camp could find itself left in the lurch. If that happens, Ajit would be a casualty of the wild success of the Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana that he piloted through the Finance Ministry for a timely rollout.

4. Survival Pangs: Among the MVA partners, NCP-SP and Shiv Sena UBT are looking at an existential crisis in all probability. Though their Lok Sabha success brought them some respite, it was the assembly election that mattered more to them as regional parties. It will be harder to retain local leaders as the Mahayuti tightens its grip over patronage networks like cooperatives and government bodies. The NCP-SP could live to fight another day if Ajit Pawar is discarded by the Mahayuti. The coming urban body elections will decide what happens to the Shiv Sena UBT. If it cannot retain the BMC, it could be curtains for the Thackery clan. Congress, being Congress, will be unfazed at another defeat to the BJP and count on its recall value in Maharashtra households to stage a comeback in 2029. 

5. Pro-Incumbency Cycle: Recall that the Congress-NCP jodi won three straight elections between 2000 and 2014, and now the Maharashtra voter has rewarded the NDA in three successive elections. The disquieting fact is that longstanding issues like the farm crisis, unemployment, Maharashtra’s industrial decline, and the reservation agitation continue to fester with no solution in sight. All these leave political openings for the opposition and it will be no surprise if the civic body polls or the 2029 Lok Sabha elections deliver a completely different mandate.