National and State heavyweights from across the political spectrum were in attendance at The Hindu’s inaugural election conclave, Poll Arena, held on Wednesday (November 6, 2024) at the Yashwantrao Chavan Centre in Mumbai. The event centred on the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections; on the anvil were hot-button issues such as the uneven nature of the alliances, seat-sharing, the rival claims to the legacies of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and battleground Mumbai – the fight for the country’s financial capital.
Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, BJP general secretary Vinod Tawde, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Nana Patole, NCP leader Praful Patel, NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule, Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan, and Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray, were among the key leaders who addressed the conclave.
No clarity on CM choice
While Mr. Aaditya Thackeray batted for his father Uddhav Thackeray to become the Chief Minister if the Maha Vikas Aghadi wins, his allies in the Congress said the decision would be taken only after the election. On the Mahayuti side, Mr. Tawde did not rule out the “Nitish Kumar pattern” when asked about the party’s stance on choosing the next CM position if the BJP was the largest party in the alliance, indicating that the BJP would take decisions on the basis of the political situation, and not necessarily on the basis of which party won the largest number of seats.
There were candid replies to uncomfortable questions about seat-sharing issues, about ideological differences, and the legacy battle.
Shiv Sena MP Milind Deora, BJP Mumbai president Ashish Shelar, AIKS leader and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Ashok Dhawale, NCP (SP) national spokesperson Clyde Crasto, Shiv Sena spokesperson Raju Waghmare were also present at the conclave.
Alliance dharma
“We go to the people on the agenda of development, on inclusive growth, not on divisive politics…We are bound by our commitment to Hindutva, because Hindutva itself is a path of progressive development,” Mr. Fadnavis said in an opening video message, highlighting the government’s flagship welfare schemes as well as infrastructure achievements.
Mr. Patole, the State Congress chief, admitted that though the party would have liked to fight in more seats in Maharashtra, they had to adjust due to alliance dharma. He stressed that he would not mellow his stance despite being in the hot seat over his differences with the Shiv Sena (UBT) during seat-sharing talks, as he was only working to strengthen his party. Though the Congress would be competing in fewer seats amid differences about “seat-sharing based on merit,” he would not back down from the fight.
Expressing confidence in the MVA coalition, he said that it would win 45 to 50 seats in the crucial “king-making” Vidarbha region, of which 32 to 35 would be won by Congress.
‘New, inclusive BJP’
In an interview with The Hindu’s Maharashtra Chief of Bureau Vinaya Deshpande, the NCP’s Mr. Patel justified the party’s choice of alliance partners, claiming that the ideology of ‘Shahu-Phule-Ambedkar’ was congruous to the ‘new BJP’s’ social welfare focus. “This is a new BJP. There is more inclusiveness of minorities and castes in the BJP-led government. Despite its roots in RSS, BJP does not want a tear in the social fabric of India,” he said.
Acknowledging that the Jarange-Patil and Maratha reservation factor would have an impact, Mr Patel also mentioned the OBC factor, indicating that other backward classes did not want any quota to be carved out of their existing share.
NCP legacy
Mr. Patel and NCP SP leader, Ms. Sule, had contrasting answers when asked about the Baramati seat, considered a battleground for the NCP factions. Though voters had chosen Ms. Sule for Delhi, as their MP, “for Mumbai it will be Dada [the NCP’s Ajit Pawar],” said Mr. Patel. Meanwhile, Ms. Sule said that the only one who understood the constituency was her father and party patriarch Sharad Pawar. She also rubbished claims of his retirement, saying he “eats, drinks and breathes” politics.
Ms. Sule ruled out any possibility of a reconciliation between the two NCP factions. However, “my fight is not with Ajit Pawar, it is with the alliance which I believe is not doing the right things,” she added. Her party spokesperson Mr. Crasto later said that “the vision for us is to be a people-centric government”.
A matter of trust
Mr. Tawde, the BJP general secretary was sanguine about its poll prospects, saying that the party would get 100 plus seats, while the Mahayuti would get 170. “A good mix of direct and indirect benefits will help the Mahayuti in this election,” he said. “BJP won less seats in Lok Sabha, but as per vote share, our share was only 0.03% less than MVA,” he said, about the BJP’s poor Lok Sabha performance in Maharashtra.
He was scathing in his remarks about who the voter would trust, asking if they would trust Uddhav Thackeray “who asked for votes on behalf of Modi but went with Congress”, the Congress “which made promises in Himachal Pradesh and other States but did not come through”, or Sharad Pawar “who is never trustworthy.” He said it was the CM Eknath Shinde who was following in the footsteps of Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray.
Ashish Shelar, BJP Mumbai president, painted the battle between the MVA and Mahayuti as one between sthagati (stagnation) and pragiti (progress).
Two-party system
Former CM Prithviraj Chavan termed it “unsustainable” to have six national parties, and plumped for a two-party system. Reflecting on the Haryana polls, Mr. Chavan noted that “Maharashtra is like six Haryanas put together,” adding that the Lok Sabha result in Haryana (which saw a 5-5 tie between the NDA and INDIA) was far closer than in Maharashtra.
“Maratha anger benefited the Congress and in Vidarbha, farmer crisis also worked in Congress’s favour. In other regions it is a six-way fight. We don’t know how it will affect each party’s vote share. But we can say that the MVA will win,” he said.
Shiv Sena MP and erstwhile Union minister Milind Deora objected to what he called “speedbreaker politics,” saying that he opposed projects such as the Aarey Metro in the name of the environment.
Ashok Dhawale, president of the All India Kisan Sabha and a CPI (M) leader, made a rare issue-based speech at an event largely centred on the politics of the polls. “The farmer is at the centre of these elections,” he said, crediting farmer’s issues for BJP’s Lok Sabha election-drubbing. “Four lakh farmers have committed suicide over the past few years, many of them in Maharashtra,” but the Union government has not given even “one naya paisa” in loan waivers in the past 10 years, he added.
Published - November 06, 2024 10:48 pm IST
