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The verdict in favour of the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in the Maharashtra Assembly election has not only surprised voters and observers but even seasoned political analysts and politicians by the sheer scale of its victory. The BJP and its alliance partners, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar), got incredible strike rates: BJP with 132 Assembly seats had a strike rate of 85 per cent; Eknath Shinde’s party with 57 seats had a strike rate of 72 per cent, while Ajit Pawar’s party with 41 Assembly seats had a strike rate of 69 per cent. Much of the credit has been attributed to popular welfare distribution schemes such as Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana and Kisan Samman Nidhi on the one hand, and careful management and consolidation of OBC voters by the Mahayuti against the uproar of the Maratha reservation issue on the other, and rightly so.
However, in this article, we explain the rise of the BJP in Maharashtra, from what some scholars have described as its once “shaky dominance”, to a stage of more consolidated dominance. Using long-term electoral data, we argue that the BJP in Maharashtra has now completely replaced the Congress as the dominant party, and by appropriating its allies under the umbrella of Hindutva ideology, it has achieved hegemonic domination wherein any oppositional politics in the State will have to directly counter the BJP in the ideological and political space. This is a big step by the party towards achieving its goal of shat pratishat bhajap (100 per cent BJP) in Maharashtra.
The BJP, which got 7 per cent votes in the 1985 Assembly election has now got more than 25 per cent in the last three Assembly elections. In the 2014 Assembly election, despite contesting alone, the BJP got 28 per cent votes, the highest for the party so far. In 2024, the BJP received 27 per cent of the total votes, but their vote share in the seats contested was 52 per cent, the highest for any political party in the State in the last four decades.
Also Read | Maharashtra’s new reality: Beyond the revolving door Before we explore the BJP’s new dominance, let us understand the earlier dominant party that it has marginalised. Several scholars, as for instance, the political scientist Rajni Kothari, had categorised Maharashtra as one of the few States that represented the dominance of the Congress “system”. It was this “system,” which included the entrenchment and accommodation of political elites in the State, that allowed the Congress to continue its grip on power in Maharashtra even when it faced organisational crises across the country.
In an important recent book, The Last Fortress of Congress Dominance: Maharashtra Since the 1990s, political scientists Suhas Palshikar and Rajeshwari Deshpande attribute several reasons for the dominance—the entry of non-Brahmin masses and leaders of the non-Brahmin movement into the party; accommodation of district-level aspirants in the power structure of government and/or party; carefully organised electoral strategies; capacity to attract workers and leaders from outside the party; introduction of policies that balanced welfare claims and the interests of entrenched social sections; Bahujan Samaj ideology that facilitated the party’s political-economic domination to mix with people’s democratic aspirations and the compulsions of competitive politics. The 1985 Assembly election is crucial to understand the Congress dominance: it was the year it received around 44 per cent of votes. It was also the last election when it won more than 100 Assembly seats.
The party’s withering started in the post-1985 phase, recovering partially in 2004, but since then the party has not come close to, or crossed, 40 per cent. Except in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, when the Congress received more than 40 per cent votes in the seats it contested. Contrary to this, the BJP vote in seats contested has consistently grown since 2014, crossing the 50 per cent mark in 2024.
Even in the 2019 Assembly election, it had got 45 per cent, and this time it managed to pull in an additional 7 per cent. With 122 seats in 2014, 105 in 2019, and 132 in 2024, the BJP has achieved the remarkable feat of crossing the 100-seat mark in three successive elections. One can see some similarities and differences in the way the BJP has used the pathways to power that had earlier helped the Congress establish its dominance in the State.
The BJP’s emergence from its shopkeepers, dominant-caste, urban-centric vote base to a party that now has a pan-Maharashtra presence with a broad cross-caste coalition is important to understand. Two factors have contributed immensely to this nationally—the politics of Hindutva and the politics of consolidation of non-dominant OBCs. Vasantrao Bhagwat came up with the Ma-Dha-Va (Mali-Dhangar-Vanjari) formula to mobilise the non-dominant OBC communities in a State where Marathas had been the dominant political force for the longest time.
This gave rise to a new BJP leadership in the State in the form of Gopinath Munde, and Pramod Mahajan, who were able to tackle the dominant Maratha leadership in the State. Along with one of its most stable alliance partners in the form of the undivided Shiv Sena, the BJP was able to promote the politics of Hindutva to increase its foothold in State politics and expand electorally even in rural areas. The expansion into the hinterlands that Shiv Sena enjoyed in Marathwada and the BJP enjoyed in North Maharashtra and Vidarbha can both be attributed to the promotion of the Hindutva ideology.
In the 2024 Assembly election, the BJP has gained significantly in its old bastion, North Maharashtra and Vidarbha. What is remarkable is the BJP’s double-digit jump in western Maharashtra, which was the bastion of Sharad Pawar. The alliance with Ajit Pawar helped to achieve this.
In Marathwada, the BJP gained narrowly, but even that is significant because it is the region of the Maratha reservation movement, which had harmed the BJP in the Lok Sabha election. In the Assembly election, the BJP managed to get close to half the total votes polled in the seats contested. The electoral success of the Hindutva ideology marks a clear distinction between the dominance of the Congress and that of the BJP.
The Congress dominance was centred around the Bahujan Samaj ideology—propagated by stalwart leader Yashwantrao Chavan, who is seen as the most important Congress leader of modern Maharashtra, and it essentially represented a broad social alliance between Dalits, Muslims , Kunbis (DMK) in some regions and Maratha-Adivasi-Muslim (MAMU) in other regions. This broad social coalition was forged on the basis of opposition to the Brahmin community, emerging as it did from the non-Brahmin ideological basis. In the case of the BJP, however, given the ideological basis of Hindutva, the social coalition that includes Hindu Dalits, OBCs, Brahmins and the dominant caste of Marathas, it excludes Muslims and Adivasis, who are still voting in large numbers for the Congress.
Considering that there might be parallel efforts on the sidelines by the RSS to reach out and co-opt the Adivasis into its ideological framework, the real exclusion in that case seems to be that of the Muslims. In the past three Assembly elections since 2014, in its dominant phase, the BJP has not fielded a single Muslim candidate. In a State where Muslims consist of 12 per cent of the total population, this is a matter of concern.
The marginalisation of this religious community in State politics is evident from the fact that the overall representation of Muslim MLAs in the State Assembly has also been on the decline, despite the entry of parties such as All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). Any further marginalisation of oppositional politics might also mean that the representation of Muslims in Maharashtra politics falls lower than what it already is. The role of welfare schemes and strategic redistribution of government resources in the BJP’s rise has drawn a lot of attention.
Whether the Jal-Yukt Shivir Yojana in drought-affected regions between 2014 and 2019 or the Ladki Bahin Yojana in 2024, the BJP has been able to use welfare distribution in a highly efficient manner to mobilise electoral support. The role of technology in direct benefit transfers and a centralised distribution system has allowed the party not only to reach more beneficiaries but also to consolidate them into voters: what some have described as the conversion of labharthis to voters. Despite the Ladki Bahin scheme being floated under the branding of Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde, the incumbent Chief Minister, who played the role of the Ladka Bhau or “favourite brother” to all the Ladki Bahin (sister) voters, it is the BJP that has reaped its benefits.
Going beyond the Chief Minister’s post now taken by Devendra Fadnavis, however, it is important to see how the BJP has mobilised and consolidated its voters more effectively using three important factors. Also Read | Can democracy trust EVMs? First, the BJP has a strong organisation in the State, which includes booth-level micro-management of a high level. From booth visatarak s to panna pramukh s, from making every polling booth a shakti kendra to campaigns such as mera booth sabse majboot (my booth is the strongest) have helped the party establish a party organisation unmatched in geographic spread.
One could argue that parties such as Shiv Sena too have a dedicated cadre, but their presence has limited geographical spread, which makes the BJP’s reach unparalleled in Maharashtra. Adding to this is the significant influence of RSS karyakartas. Maharashtra has typically seen politics centred around personalities who represent their own factions.
It will be interesting to see how the BJP’s party-centric organisation holds its own in the traditionally leader-centric politics of the State. Second, the BJP successfully accommodated regional political elites from other parties, either by allowing them into its party (such as Vikhe-Patil or Ashok Chavan or Madhukar Pichad) or by accommodating them in its allied parties. This helped the BJP co-opt the ruling Maratha classes into its fold.
Allied organisations such as the Shiv Pratishthan Hindustan allowed poor Maratha youth in rural areas to find some meaning by being co-opted into the larger cause of making or “reclaiming” a Hindu Rashtra. This ultimately helped the BJP strengthen its broad social coalition. The third and most important factor is the BJP’s control over the levers of the political economy and its use of State resources to further redistribute this control.
In the run-up to the election, development corporations for every possible micro OBC community were mobilised to facilitate State patronage. Similar strategies were used to reach out to the Maratha community by accommodating leaders including Narendra Patil in Cabinet positions via the Annasaheb Patil Arthik Magas Vikas Mahamandal when it first came to power as the dominant partner in an alliance government with the Shiv Sena in 2014. The BJP could use the existing patronage networks controlled by these political elites in addition to its own strong organisational presence on the ground.
Clash of elites Two examples of this synchronisation of BJP organisations with local patronage networks were seen. In Rani Ahilyabainagar, formerly Ahmednagar, the Vikhe-Patils helped the Mahayuti candidate, a farmer’s son, to defeat the eight-time MLA from Sangamner and Congress stalwart Balasaheb Thorat . In Nanded, former Congressman Ashok Chavan’s networks of sugar cooperatives, educational institutions, and Zila Parishads allowed the BJP to extend its lead on all six constituencies in the district even though the Congress had won the Parliamentary seat earlier based on his own patronage networks.
However, in the clash of elites in Nanded, the stronger party organisation of the BJP became the clincher. The political ramifications of the BJP’s strong consolidation of power will be important for the future course of politics in Maharashtra. While there is some similarity with the Congress party’s earlier control of State resources, large-scale welfare delivery, and accommodation of political elites, there are differences in the social alliance realignment of the Bahujan Samaj under Hindutva from the previous form of Bahujan Samaj politics based on a broader idea of social justice.
There is also the shift from personality-centric to party-centric politics. These changes might be influential in changing the nature of future politics in Maharashtra. Sarthak Bagchi is assistant professor, Ahmedabad University.
Ashish Ranjan is the co-founder of DALES (Data Action Lab for Emerging Societies). CONTRIBUTE YOUR COMMENTS SHARE THIS STORY Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit.
