The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) might be in the driver’s seat in Maharashtra with the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) faction joining the ruling dispensation, but its ties with smaller parties will determine the success of ‘Mission 45’: the BJP’s aim of winning 45 out of the State’s 48 Lok Sabha seats in next year’s general election.
Several of these parties are either part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance or plan to contest the poll independently. Should they go solo, the advantage will lie with the BJP as smaller parties threaten to claw into the traditional vote bank of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the Opposition alliance comprising the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, and the Congress.
Farmer-centric party
Raju Shetti, who heads the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS) and has allied with both the BJP and the MVA in the past, wields influence over pockets in the ‘sugar belt’ districts of Sangli, Kolhapur and Satara, and claims a core base of 4.5 lakh voters.
A former two-time MP from Hatkanangale in Kolhapur, Mr. Shetti’s party, with its focus on providing fair and remunerative prices to farmers and fighting against rising fertilizer costs and diesel prices, is attempting to present itself as a political alternative to the rural electorate in western Maharashtra and parts of Marathwada.
The SSS, however, faces competition from two parties that claim to be farmer-centric: Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), and former Maharashtra Minister Sadabhau Khot’s Rayat Kranti Sanghatana, a BJP ally.
The BRS has been decried by the Congress and the Shiv Sena (UBT) as the BJP’s ‘B-team’, while Mr. Khot, a former close aide of Mr. Shetti and now his bête noire, presents a threat to both the MVA and Mr. Shetti.
Disgruntled ally
Prahar Janshakti Party, led by four-term MLA Bacchu Kadu, who holds influence in Amravati and Buldhana districts, is a vital BJP ally. Mr. Kadu was the most important of the 10 Independents who backed Chief Minister and Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde’s coup against the Thackeray-led Sena.
The BJP will have to placate the disgruntled MLA, who has been lobbying for a Cabinet berth since the formation of the Sena-BJP government in 2022.
Dhangar leader
Another key BJP ally is Rashtriya Samaj Paksha chief Mahadev Jankar, a prominent Dhangar leader. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Mr. Jankar gave a scare to NCP MP Supriya Sule in Baramati, with the latter winning by a margin of 70,000 votes.
The BJP will have to fulfil the Dhangar community’s long-standing demand of being included in the Scheduled Tribe category to gain its support.
VBA, AIMIM
Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM are opposed to the BJP’s alleged communal ideology, but they have indirectly benefited the party by eating into Congress and NCP votes in the past.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Congress and NCP candidates faced defeat in at least 10 Lok Sabha seats after the VBA-AIMIM alliance snatched Dalit and minority votes.
Mr. Ambedkar is nominally allied to the Sena (UBT), but has remained non-committal about joining the MVA, claiming that the Congress and the NCP do not want it to come on board.
The Congress, which is currently the strongest Opposition party in the State, remains wary of inducting Mr. Ambedkar into the MVA. However, Mr. Thackeray had recently said while no discussions have taken place with the VBA of late, he was confident that Mr. Ambedkar would back the Opposition alliance.
While the BJP will seek to placate leaders like Mr. Kadu and Mr. Jankar to gain the upper hand in the Lok Sabha poll, a weakened MVA, following Ajit Pawar’s rebellion, will have to strain every sinew to keep like-minded smaller parties like the VBA and the SSS on its side.
