Maharashtra Poll: Game on

Maharashtra polls: Inside the high-stakes battle of strategy and influence

Congress party’s media and publicity wing president Pawan Khera posted on Twitter that the party’s internal survey indicates that the Maha Vikas Aghadi will win between 165-170 seats in the upcoming Maharashtra elections on November 20.

Adequately – various polls conducted by the three coalition members suggested above 150 seats for the MVA compared to the 145 seats needed for a simple majority. And the BJP’s internal polls have also indicated that the coalition it leads will be on the losing side.

But then, even in the Haryana elections earlier this year, internal polls and all pollsters were unanimous that the Congress would get a comfortable majority — and look how it turned out.

I saw blue the day Khera gave his statement

Maharashtra polls: Inside the high-stakes battle of strategy and influence

Congress party’s media and publicity wing president Pawan Khera posted on Twitter that the party’s internal survey indicates that the Maha Vikas Aghadi will win between 165-170 seats in the upcoming Maharashtra elections on November 20.

Adequately – various polls conducted by the three coalition members suggested above 150 seats for the MVA compared to the 145 seats needed for a simple majority. And the BJP’s internal polls have also indicated that the coalition it leads will be on the losing side.

But then, even in the Haryana elections earlier this year, internal polls and all pollsters were unanimous that the Congress would get a comfortable majority — and look how it turned out.

On the same day Khera gave his speech, I saw a Blue-Tick Congress supporter post a scathing comment on Twitter about the lack of crowd. Amit Shah’s rally In the state – and therein lies the issue. Neither in Haryana before, nor now in Maharashtra, has the Congress made a major change in the BJP’s campaign strategy.

The old model of an array of star campaigners led by Prime Minister Modi to demolish an electoral state and truck in heavily paid mobs for a show of power has been jettisoned — and a big part of the reason is the BJP’s realization. A Modi-led campaign is no longer a silver bullet to ensure electoral gains.

That model has now been replaced by a ground game made up of many elements – and the most notable is the fielding of “independent” candidates funded by the BJP. Such “independents” are spread across constituencies where the race is expected to be tight, based on polling numbers. Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, and the idea is to bleed votes from the MVA.

A second, and related, move is the fielding of candidates with the same name as the official MVA candidates. This is one example of dozens: in the Tasgaon-Kawathe Mahakal constituency, Sharad Pawar’s faction of the Nationalist Congress Party has fielded Rohit Raosaheb Patil, son of former home minister late RR Patil. The official challenger is Sanjay Kaka Patil of the NCP’s Ajit Pawar faction – but the field also includes Rohit Raosaheb Patil, Rohit Rajgonda Patil and Rohit Rajendra Patil – all independent candidates whose names are suspiciously close to the senior Pawar’s candidate. The idea is to mislead voters and, according to backstage whispers, these independents are being paid from the BJP’s huge war chest.

Maharashtra Poll: The game is on

The BJP also managed to rope in Raj Thackeray and his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena – not because the fringe party led by Uddhav’s uncle had serious skin in the game, but because the MNS could split votes in many constituencies, especially in Mumbai (which alone has 36 seats) and Pune. .

Along with these and other activities of Amit Shah’s dirty tricks department, the BJP has relied heavily on the support of the RSS, which alone has a cadre aligned with Shiv Sena under Uddhav Thackeray. This time, the RSS is firmly behind the BJP-led Mahayutti alliance for two reasons: One, the RSS knows that it will help the BJP-led alliance win in Maharashtra. Hinduism The organization is in a good deal position to press for the laundry list of demands it has in its back pocket and two, the RSS is equally aware of the benefits it will get from the BJP controlling India’s most cash-rich state.

The political battle between the Mahavikas Aghadi and the Mahayuti is countered by a big business battle in the background. Word is that the Ambanis are on good terms with Uddhav Thackeray and are assured that if MVA wins, Thackeray will pull the plug on the Dharavi redevelopment project. Meanwhile, Gautam Adani is largely backing Mahayuti to protect its stake in the Dharavi scheme. Meanwhile, watch this Srinivasan Jain interview with Ajit Pawar where, among other things, Pawar talks about how Adani joined hands with Amit Shah to engineer a split within the NCP.

The rock appears solid on the MVA surface. The coalition survived the seat-sharing talks without serious wounds to any of the three parties; The question of who will be the chief minister has also been settled after Pawar’s NCP and Congress agreed to take Uddhav Thackeray to the top post.

But the big ‘if’ that could determine MVA’s fate depends on how well one party’s vote translates to the other two – and it all depends on how the three parties campaign during the Lok Sabha elections. As of date, this is not happening to any significant degree.

That is not to say that the Mahayuti alliance is flawless. Tensions between Devendra Fadnavis, Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar continue, and this is largely responsible for the grand alliance going into the polls without a chief ministerial candidate.

Amit Shah and the central leadership have put such issues on the back burner to be resolved after the results on November 23. For now, each regional satrap has been given specific areas to focus on, with an emphasis on ground game and putting machinery in place to get votes out.

With all due respect to Khera and his party’s voters, the upcoming Maharashtra elections are nowhere near a compromise — and this voter suppression and inevitable EVM tampering (which, no matter how vehemently ECI denies it, is too much. Much more, but more on that later). .

This article first appeared on Prem Panicker’s Substack. Here is the original link to the source. To follow Prem Panicker on Substack, click here.