X: @prashanthamine
Mumbai: Supreme overconfidence, complete arrogance, infighting and complacency in the party cadres, letting the opposition off the hook in corruption cases and hobnobbing with them, are some of the reasons why the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led Mahayuti performed so badly electorally in Mumbai and Maharashtra. In doing so they have given a fresh lease of life to the opposition which is bound to go for BJP jugular vein in the ensuing Assembly and Municipal elections later in the year.
The writing was pretty much on the wall even before the battle had started. The BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadres were not at all happy with the party leadership’s choice of alliance partners and the tainted candidates the alliance partners had put up. Save, except for the choice of Union Minister Piyush Goyal candidature for Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency.
The BJP and Sangh cadres did not wholeheartedly work for the Shiv Sena Eknath Shinde faction (SS-ES) and Nationalist Congress Party Sharad Pawar (NCP-SP) faction. On the contrary in many places in Mumbai, there were reports of cadres indulging in negative campaigning against their own and alliance candidates. The Sangh cadres simply backed-off from lending their support to the campaigning.
There was resentment against SS-ES candidate Ravindra Waikar who was seen as a tainted candidate facing Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe. Not that his victorious rival Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (SS-UBT) faction candidate Amol Kirtikar was any better. In the end the voters and the cadres in many places put their weight behind Kirtikar.
In Mumbai North-Central Lok Sabha constituency, the BJP did not exactly redeem the situation by axing its sitting MP Poonam Mahajan and instead giving ticket to rank novice and outsider Adv Ujjwal Nikam. The fear of caste equations going against the party, the division of Hindu, BJP and Shiv Sena votes and consolidation of the minority votes led Varsha Gaikwad of the Congress trouncing Adv Nikam.
The lackluster performance as an MP of Manoj Kotak from Mumbai North-East constituency did cost the party dearly. The Ghatkopar billboard collapse tragedy just days before the polling on May 20 did not help the cause either as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) administration is effectively under the BJP led Mahayuti state government.
The BJP has been heavily dependent on the Gujarati votes in Mulund and Ghatkopar in Mumbai North-East, ignoring the rest. Incidents like a Maharashtrian businesswoman being denied office space in Mulund also did not go down well with the Marathi speaking voters. Lastly, the party has been using its former MP from the constituency Dr Kirit Somaiya as a rabble rouser who dug up corruption cases against the rivals, only to eat a crow after finding them in the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The BJP leadership appears to have ignored intelligence reports about weak candidates like Manoj Kotak, changing candidates or refusing to change weak ones and bad choice of alliance partners.
The betrayal and treachery card were played well by the SS-UBT faction ensuring that its candidates in Mumbai North-West, Mumbai South-Central and Mumbai South, its traditional strong holds won comfortably in the end.
The defeat of sitting SS-ES MP Rahul Shewale from Mumbai South-Central Lok Sabha constituency, a traditional stronghold of the SS-UBT goes to indicate that the SS-UBT stronghold is intact. This is not a good sign for the BJP led Mahayuti as it braces itself for the ensuing Assembly elections in September-October and the civic elections to the BMC and other municipal corporations in Mumbai and Thane MMR region.
The choice of Yamini Jadhav as an SS-ES candidate against sitting SS-UBT MP and candidate Arvind Sawant was no match. Her husband Yashwant Jadhav was already facing probe in alleged corruption cases. During her campaigning she candidly admitted that she was just a technical candidate, and that the real candidate as Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Party insiders do admit that SS-ES and NCP Ajit Pawar faction (NCP-AP) as alliance partners were weak and clueless. Secondly, the idea of taking support of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) to further dent the SS-UBT did not work out as neither the MNS or the SS-ES or the NCP-ACP ensured transfer of votes or cadre support. In the end the alliance partners proved to be excess baggage that the BJP was carrying.
Another factor that the BJP cadres failed to do was to canvas for votes based on the performance of the PM Modi led government in terms of infrastructure development in Mumbai. The state and the central government too went soft and slow on the slew of alleged corruption cases against the SS-UBT and NCP-AP leaders, displeasing their core supporters.
Most importantly, what the BJP and Mahayuti leadership failed to take notice or had rather taken the sizeable North Indian community vote bank for granted. The results of the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh revealed that the community was not supporting the BJP in Mumbai given its hobnobbing with the MNS.
Of the six Lok Sabha constituencies, barring Mumbai North-West constituency where a marginal, nominal increase of just 0.47% in voting was recorded this time around as compared to the 2019 polls, the voting percentage in the rest of the five Lok Sabha constituencies had seen a significant drop. It was not an ominous sign for the Mahayuti.
The current situation can be summed up by drawing an analogy to an event in 2004 when the pressure of the India Shining campaign on late prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee compelled to go in for early polls in April-May, much ahead of the scheduled dates.
Vajpayee had been to Savarkar Smarak Trust opposite Shivaji Park, Dadar for a program that was also attended among others by late Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray.
Just before Vajpayee got up to deliver his keynote address, a rather boisterous crowd of Sena supporters began raising slogans “Abki bar Atal Sarkar”. They appeared more enthusiastic than the BJP cadres.
Starting his speech in chaste Marathi, Vajpayee remarked “Abki bar nahi, anni Aglibar pan nahi” (no more second time, no more next time). His initial remarks stunned the audience into silence and even left late Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray looking at Vajpayee in utter disbelief.
It seems as though the BJP leadership has turned its back on its own history of shooting itself in the foot when everything is going well. The verdict surely calls for a complete overhaul of both the Maharashtra and Mumbai BJP leadership, bringing in new and fresh faces and some course correction. But is it too late?
