NEW DELHI: Congress couldn’t have imagined a drubbing like the one it got in Maharashtra, where MVA managed only 46 seats – 10 fewer than INDIA bloc’s tally in Jharkhand, where the assembly is less than one-third the size of the western state. Congress’s weakness in straight fights with BJP has also been highlighted again.
Coming just six months after BJP’s LS reverses in Maharashtra, the party will interpret its best-ever tally in the state as a revalidation of PM Modi’s brand of politics. His authority, following a win in Haryana and sweep in Maharashtra, is now all but restored after the knock it took following LS results. In his post-victory speech, Modi made it plain he would focus as much on ‘development’ as on Hindutva themes and the ‘virasat’ (heritage) platform.
A charged-up BJP will push its plans on UCC and one nation, one election more aggressively. Passing the ONOE bill will be easier after two state wins.
Economic policy initiatives like hiking the ceiling on FDI in insurance to 100% will be politically safer following BJP’s crushing win in Maharashtra.
Key govt officials are upbeat that the bill can be placed before Parliament in the coming winter session. As for caste census, which only a few months back looked like a major opposition strategy, BJP, which executed electorally profitable social engineering in Haryana and Maharashtra, now has the luxury of not being pushed into it out of fear of a backlash.
Maharashtra’s win is so overwhelming that BJP has won the optics game despite its loss in smaller, and politically less crucial, Jharkhand. But even in that loss, BJP’s vote share is close to that of the JMM-led INDIA alliance. Chatter on the party’s and Modi’s waning popular appeal will now quieten.
The other big political message was that Rahul Gandhi’s charges of crony capitalism against BJP is not a theme voters care about much. The Adani factor was hyped up by MVA in Maharashtra. But ordinary citizens have proved again that a measure of economic security, even via govt sops, is much more important to them than allegations of which rich industrialist is cozying up with which party.
Congress, after back-to-back losses in Haryana and Maharashtra, has all but lost the leading status it gained among opposition parties after its improved LS performance. Alliance partners will again be more aggressive in negotiations and less willing to follow agendas set unilaterally by Congress.
This will be especially true when it comes to Congress’s opposition to BJP’s future Hindutva agenda, whether its uniform civil code or pushing through the Waqf reform bill. Modi was pointed in his post-victory speech when he said the Constitution didn’t back a waqf law.