When the Congress teamed up with the undivided NCP and Shiv Sena in 2019, it was seen as the weakest link in the Maha Vikas Aghadi – even alliance leaders took occasional jibes. But it has now emerged as the dark horse, increasing its tally from one to 13, scoring more than its alliance partners.
The Shiv Sena (UBT) won nine of the 21 Lok Sabha seats it contested, the NCP (SP) eight of 10, and the Congress won 13 of 17. Of these 13, 11 were direct contests with the BJP while two others were face-offs with the Shiv Sena.
There were many reasons behind this turnaround in the Congress share. But most important of these were a decentralisation of power, a “caretaker” model, and how the party dealt with factionalism within its state unit, according to state party leaders and workers who spoke to Newslaundry. Analysts, however, claimed that it was because the party had a “better management” to reap the benefits of a “consolidation” of minority and Dalit votes.
Meanwhile, the Mahayuti alliance of the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP won 17 of the 48 seats they contested. The BJP’s tally shrunk to nine as compared to the 23 it won in 2019. The Sena won seven of the 14 seats it contested while Ajit Pawar’s NCP won one of the four seats it fielded candidates in.
Factionalism
There had been a churn within the Congress’s Maharashtra unit after Nana Patole – who won the Bhandara-Gondia seat on a BJP ticket in 2014 and quit the BJP over differences with PM Narendra Modi in 2018 – was chosen to lead it in 2021.
A senior Congress leader in Maharashtra, who did not wish to be named, said factionalism was rampant in the state unit with groups such as the Balasaheb Thorat group, Ashok Chavan group, and the Vishwajeet Kadam group. “Nana Patole refrained from getting into any kind of factionalism and unified the party workers at the ground level. He is very easy to talk to and approachable.”
A Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee member claimed that Patole never gave preference to his personal contacts. “He executed decentralisation in the party. Earlier state level organisational meetings used to happen only in Mumbai. But then Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala and Nana started a new pattern…they started conducting meetings in the cities of north Maharashtra, west Maharashtra, Vidarbha, Marathwada and Konkan. This helped local office-bearers and workers in those regions to take part in those meetings which directly strengthened the organisation at grass root level.”
An MPCC member based in Pune said Dalit and minority votes had consolidated in favour of the alliance this time and the Congress and NCP managed to ride this sentiment. “Shiv Sena couldn’t achieve a good strike rate because of inappropriate selection of candidates and mismanagement.”
The Congress’s seats are spread out across the state.
Of the seven seats won by the MVA in Vidarbha, five were by the Congress. Pratibha Dhanorkar won from Chandrapur, Shyam Kumar Barve from Ramtek, Prashant Padole from Bhandara-Gondia, Kirsan Namdeo from Gadchiroli and Balwant Wankhede from Amravati while defeating BJP’s star candidate Navneet Rana.
Of the seven seats won by the MVA in Marathwada, three were by the Congress. Shivaji Kalge won from Latur, Kalyan Kale from Jalana and Vasantrao Chavan from Nanded which was once the home turf of former CM Ashok Chavhan, who joined the BJP in February 2024.
In Mumbai North Central constituency, Congress’s Varsha Gaikwad defeated celebrated lawyer and BJP candidate Ujjwal Nikam. In north Maharashtra, Congress’s Gopal Padwi won from the tribal seat of Nandurbar while Shobha Bacchav won from Dhule.
In western Maharashtra, Congress’s candidate Praniti Shinde won from Solapur while Chatrapati Shahu Maharaj won from Kolhapur.
MVA impact and a last-minute change in Solapur
Being wary of the impact of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, led by BR Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar, the MVA held multiple meetings with the VBA for a seat-sharing solution. But these failed, and the VBA fielded candidates on over a dozen seats across the state.
In at least four of these seats, the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance won as the VBA impacted the MVA’s prospects by division of votes. In Akola, where VBA secured 2,76,747 votes, the winning margin was 40,626 votes. In Buldhana, the VBA clocked 98,441 votes when the margin was 29,479. In Mumbai North West, the VBA got 10,052 votes while the margin was 48 votes, and in Hatkanangale, the VBA got 32,696 votes when the margin was 13,426.
Solapur would also have been part of this list had the VBA not exited the contest at the last minute. In 2019, Congress leader and former home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde had lost by 1.58 lakh votes while the VBA polled more than 1.7 lakh.
This time, the Congress fielded Shinde’s daughter Praniti Shinde against the BJP’s Ram Satpute and the VBA’s Rahul Gaikwad, a suave social activist from a family of bureaucrats. Gaikwas was seen as a popular choice in the rural Solapur, with many villagers welcoming him. But at the eleventh hour, he shocked everyone by withdrawing from the race with a powerful message urging voters to unite against BJP's divisive politics.
A state level office-bearer said that Praniti Shinde’s victory margin is 74,197 votes, and this could have been ruined had Gaikwad contested.
“The BJP’s rampant spread of communal hate, its IT cell propagating fake narratives targeting minority communities, and the increasing authoritarianism of the BJP’s top leadership along with a section of the media running constant propaganda for them, has caused chaos in the country. It wasn’t easy to withdraw my candidature. I knew it could mean political suicide for me. But it was necessary,” said Gaikwad.
‘Caretaker’ model
This time, the top leaders of the Maharashtra Congress were told to become “caretakers” of candidates fielded across the state.
“The top central leadership gave a free hand to the state level top leaders to choose a candidate of their choice and then assigned them the responsibility to get them elected,” said Vishal Lingayat, a research and analytics expert.
“For instance, in Gadchiroli, the party told Vijay Wadettiwar to select the candidate of his choice and get him elected. In Ramtek, Sunil Kedar was told to select the candidate and get him elected…in all the 17 seats, senior leaders were given a free hand to choose the candidate of their choice and ordered to get them elected. Basically this was the Congress finest move. They decentralised power and responsibilities which not only helped them to select proper candidates but also bound their state leadership to act accordingly to get those candidates elected.”
Lingayat said the Shiv Sena (UBT) could have been the biggest party but “their management and choices of seats were really poor. They just gave the tickets to the candidates but didn’t provide any support to them. In today’s politics, you cannot use outdated techniques of electoral politics…the Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde performed extremely well despite having less popularity than Uddhav Thackeray.”
Parimal Maya Sudhakar, a political commentator and the head of the School of Government at Maharashtra Institute of Technology, said, “There was severe farm distress in Vidarbha because of the stagnant prices of cotton and soybean, and Congress managed to divert those votes…Secondly, there was definitely a tribal shift in Maharashtra. They voted out BJP and went for Congress. In the tribal constituency of Nandurbar, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra received tremendous response. Then during the election, Priyanka Gandhi’s meetings in Nandurbar and Dhule received a far better response in comparison to any of PM Narendra Modi’s rallies in those areas.”
“Earlier, Dalit voters shifted away from Congress because of Maratha dominance in the party. But this time Dalit voters supported Congress on the issue of saving the constitution. Similarly, Maratha voters voted against BJP time on the issue of Maratha reservation…combination of Dalits, Marathas and Muslims itself is a winning combination.”
Mujahid Khan, the MPCC’s state secretary and in-charge of the Congress committee in Chatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, said, “We started our preparation almost a year before…We made village committees, block committees and circle committees. There were regular meetings…leaders from AICC assigned state responsibilities.”
Atul Londhe, chief spokesperson of the Maharashtra Congress, said the “most important factor of this win is that the combined leadership of the three parties fought together”. “We improved our structure right from the booth level to the top. We successfully created a narrative against all the wrongdoings of the BJP. Farmers were in distress, there was an issue of Maratha reservation, illegal use of central agencies and the governor's office, and the split of Shiv Sena and NCP. Because of all these factors, people were not happy with the BJP and voted for us.”
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