The backdrop to this is the turmoil that followed the 2019 state assembly elections, when Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena allied with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but broke away a few weeks later to join Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Indian National Congress, which now calls itself the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA).
Further rifts ensued, with both the Shiv Sena and the NCP splitting apart and factions led by Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar joining the BJP-led Mahayuti. Many old friends are now bitter enemies and former allies have turned into rivals.
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This political turmoil was somewhat reflected in the results of India’s Lok Sabha elections. Smita Wagh, the Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Jalgaon, was cautious when she said: “Yes, people are finding it strange that till yesterday we were attacking leaders like Ajit Pawar and now we are defending them.”
As a result of new alliances between political parties, not only have the old poles of power shifted; new forces have also emerged. For example, Anees Ahmad, a former member of the Legislative Assembly and BJP leader from Nagpur, confessed that the new rapport between BJP leader Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav might lead the BJP to cede some seats in Maharashtra “that could have been won by the BJP.”
And one thing is clear: In the upcoming state elections, negotiations over seat allocation will be just as important as actual voter outreach.
Mindful of this, all political parties have begun preparations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his party legislators in Maharashtra a day after the budget. He reportedly told them to unite and counter the opposition’s claims. “The prime minister asked us to rise above the opposition’s propaganda against the government and reach out to all voters at the polling booth level,” said a BJP legislator who attended the meeting. BJP’s coalition partner, the Sindhi Shiv Sena, is also holding parallel meetings. Deputy Chief Minister of the state Ajit Pawar, who left the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to join the BJP coalition, has met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and is set to meet him again after highlighting the issue of delay in seat allocation and stressing the need to reach an agreement on seat adjustments at the earliest.
The BJP is also leaving everything to chance. On Thursday, the party appointed a coordination committee, consisting of state president Nana Patole, deputy president Nana Gawande and state Congress leader (outgoing state legislator) Balasaheb Thorat, to represent the party’s interests in seat negotiations with coalition partners. This follows several meetings in Mumbai in early July between the BJP’s core committee members in Maharashtra, state legislators and MPs in the presence of AICC general secretary KC Venugopal and Maharashtra Election Commissioner Ramesh Chennithala. A more focused senior-level meeting was held in Delhi last week, where strategist Sunil Kanugol gave a presentation on the ground situation.
These negotiations are crucial to prevent all parties from self-destructing. The central question is: what will be the basic organising principle in the distribution of tickets? Obviously, the more seats a party contests, the more seats it will win and the greater its chances of winning enough seats to grab the Prime Minister’s post.
One of the principles of ticket allocation is that the performance of each party in its subdivided Lok Sabha constituency serves as a benchmark for the proportion of seats it contests in the Lok Sabha elections. However, since then, political affiliations have changed, so this cannot be considered an accurate barometer.
While talks are still on, the Indian National Congress expects the 2019 state assembly elections to be used as a benchmark within the MVA. According to the results, the (undivided) Shiv Sena won 56 of the 124 seats it contested as part of the 164-124 seat apportionment formula agreed with the BJP. Of these, Uddhav Thackeray will win seats held by state legislators still loyal to him, while the seats where his supporters have defected to the opposition are yet to be contested.
“In 2019, Shiv Sena (United) won 56 seats, NCP (United) 54 and Congress 45 seats. That’s a total of 155 seats. In addition, there are seats (105) won by the BJP in collaboration with Shiv Sena. Of these, Congress came second in 52 seats. NCP came second in 38 seats. Both the parties will claim these seats to field candidates. The rest will depend on negotiations,” said former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan of the Congress Party. He added that smaller parties will also have to be taken into account in the negotiations. In 2019, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) contested eight seats, SP seven and Swabhimani Paksha five seats, which are just a few examples. The Congress Party is aiming to win 100 seats and the NCP (Sharad Pawar) has claimed around 80 seats.
Meanwhile, Mahayuti is also not in an easy situation. “If each constituency has to contest 100 seats, each party has to contest separately. It is not acceptable for the party that we are being given only 55 seats when there are 288,” Amol Mitkari, Legislative Council member from Akola, NCP spokesman and Ajit Pawar’s ally, said a few weeks ago. The BJP has sought action against him for not following his turn to speak as the negotiations are still on. So far, no action has been taken from Ajit Pawar. Mitkari also said in X that “it was Ajit Pawar who saved Eknath Shinde” and that without his help Shinde would not have been able to form the government.
Other partners have also criticised the BJP. “Due to BJP interference, we lost the Nashik, Hingoli and Washim Lok Sabha seats. Otherwise, Hemant Godse, Hemant Patil and Bawana Gawali would have been re-elected to the Lok Sabha. We hope the BJP does not repeat the same mistake in the state assembly elections,” Ramdas Kadam of Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena told a press conference.
BJP spokesman Syed Zafar Islam told The Business Standard that the party had confidence in Devendra Fadnavis’s ability to bring together diverse voices. “We are fully committed in the state assembly elections. We will fight to win and we will win for sure.”
Not everyone agrees. “The people have voted firmly against the BJP in the Lok Sabha. The National Democratic Alliance will come to power in 2024,” Chavan said, adding, “The party keeps saying Fadnavis is the best bet. Let’s see if the senior leadership supports Fadnavis.”
