The election results of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra will set the game plan for the ruling Mahayuti and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalitions for the assembly polls later this year.
The winner will be declared on June 4 for the parliamentary elections that started on April 19, and will continue till June 1. Maharashtra voted in five phases from April 19 to May 20.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha Election, the NDA, consisting of BJP and Shiv Sena, emerged as winner with 42 seats in its kitty.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha Election, the NDA won again with 42 seats, but Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena parted ways from the coalition to form the government in the state with Congress and National Congress Party (NCP).
In June 2022, Eknath Shinde rebelled against then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, resulting in a split within the Shiv Sena and the collapse of the MVA government in the state.
Last year in May, the Supreme Court ruled that the Maharashtra government led Shinde will persist as Thackeray had resigned without undergoing a floor test.
In January 2024, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar declared Shiv Sena led by chief minister Shinde’s faction as the ‘real Shiv Sena’.
Let us look at the key factors that could shape the outcome of the Maharashtra Lok Sabha Election for the ruling Mahayuti (BJP, Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP faction) government and MVA.
Maratha Caste Reservation
Marathas comprise 33% of the state population. In the run-up to the Lok Sabha election, the Marathas began protesting, which was led by activist Manoj Jarange Patil, demanding reservations in the OBC category. With protests turning violent, the Mahayuti announced 10% quota for the economically backward people among the Marathas. However, Jarange remains firm in including Marathas in the OBC category.
The agitation is still limited to Antarwali Sarati village located in Marathawada region’s Jalna district, with the community stronghold in Beed, Jalna and Nanded Lok Sabha constituencies.
Dalit and Minority
The OBCs think any quota to the Marathas within their community would strip them off their benefits. Under the Sakal Maharashtra OBC Sangh, the community leaders sought to rally the different groups falling under OBCs.
The OBCs form 52% of the state’s population, with the dominant categories among them being the Mallis, Dhangars and Vanjaris. They seem to have immense influence across Vidarbha, North Maharashtra and Marathwada regions.
In case of Maharashtra, while the OBCs seem to be firmly in favour of the NDA, SCs constituting 12 percent, STs forming 10% and Muslims, who constitute 12% vote, can be an important factor in certain constituencies where either of the categories along with the Muslims are in sizeable numbers, as mentioned in the Swarajya magazine.
OBC leader Prakash Shendge had said, as quoted by The Indian Express, “Our central issue was to defeat the Marathas’ design to dilute OBC reservation… The Marathas are a politically dominant community. We don’t object to a separate 10% quota for them. But inclusion within the existing OBC quota is absolutely unacceptable.”
For Dalits, who constitute 10.5% to 16% in some of the constituencies in Vidarbha, North Maharashtra, Western Maharashtra, Konkan and Marathwada, the Maratha quota agitation has left the “divide on caste and community lines”, according to Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) president Prakash Amebedkar, as quoted by The Indian Express.
The NDA deployed its Dalit face and Union minister Ramdas Athavale, leader of the RPI(A), to counter the Opposition campaign.
Tribal
The tribals form a considerable 8% of Maharashtra’s population, with four constituencies reserved for Scheduled Tribes — Nandurbar, Dindori, Gadchiroli-Chimur and Palghar. Apart from these seats, the tribal Dhangar vote bank is a key factor in constituencies of Western Maharashtra, North Maharashtra and Vidarbha.
Muslims
Muslims seem to be siding a member of the Thackeray family after the Shiv Sena’s split between the BJP-led NDA and the INDIA bloc. Muslims formed 11.54% of Maharashtra’s population as per the 2011 Census. In some key constituencies in Marathwada, Mumbai and North Maharashtra, their numbers go up to 25%.
Onion Ban
The famers were agitated after the Union government’s policy to impose 40% duty on onion exports in August 2023 and later ban the export of the vegetable until April. Thee Centre lifted the ban on export of the bulb with “immediate effect” on May 4.
The country’s largest onion market is located in Lasalgaon in the Nashik District of Maharashtra.
Farmers in Dindori pointed out the Central government’s flip-flop on onion export policy, criticising its ad hoc decision to impose a ban on the exports and then withdraw without giving any reasonable time for the farmers and traders to prepare themselves.
In April, the Centre allowed the export of 99,150 metric tonnes of onion to six countries – Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, Bhutan, Bahrain, Mauritius and Sri Lanka. It was a tactical move to placate the outrage amongst onion farmers in North Maharashtra.
“Experts say that the Union government has been intervening in the commodities market for more than a year, including that of the onion, considering the widely held assumption that onion and petrol price rise had contributed to the NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee being dislodged from power in 2004,” as quoted in Swarajya magazine.