The split in the Shiv Sena and in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) may have left a trail of confusion and dismay in its wake within the alliance in Maharashtra, but the party’s active of wooing of Maratha leaders in the form of the NCP’s Ajit Pawar has raised its own series of misgivings within the Maharashtra BJP.
For many years, the BJP had been working on its own social engineering in Maharashtra, based on OBC consolidation, with OBCs estimated at around 52% of the population. With the Maratha vote solidly with leaders such as NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar and the Congress party’s Vilasrao Deshmukh, this was the obvious route for the BJP to take at that time.
This consolidation was created as a counterpoint to Maratha dominance, and challenged in Marathwada, and some parts of western Maharashtra and eastern Vidarbha. “The BJP had in the 1980s itself, under Vasant Rao Bhagwat, the then general secretary (organisation), decided to work on what was called the ‘MaDhaV’ combination, that is, Malis, Dhangars and Vanjaris,” a senior leader in the Maharashtra BJP said.
