Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde flanked by Deputy Chief Ministers Ajit Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis during a press conference in Mumbai. | Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini
Maharashtra is one of the states that contributed significantly to the decline of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha elections, which were held four months ago. Currently, Assembly elections are scheduled to be held on November 20 in the State.
Maharashtra Assembly Elections: Full coverage
The competitors
The incumbent alliance, called Mahayuti, comprising the BJP, the Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde, and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by Ajit Pawar, will hope to improve its performance. The Mahayuti government has launched several welfare schemes, which have been announced aggressively for the past few months.
A rival coalition group, called Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), comprising the Congress, Sharad Pawar-led NCP, and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), is hoping to repeat its performance from the Lok Sabha elections. The MVA held the BJP responsible for splitting the country’s two main parties – the Shiv Sena and the NCP – into two parties.
In a survey conducted between September 21, 2024, and October 6, 2024, the Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and the MIT-School of Government (MIT-SOG) sought to measure public opinion on the performance of the Mahayuti Government led by Eknath Shinde, who recently completed two years in power, compared to the performance of the previous MVA government, led by Uddhav Thackeray. It also seeks to gauge the mood of voters in the country on various important issues that will be at the center of the election campaign. The goal is not to make a vote projection, but to understand what factors can influence the choice of voters. It is clear that voters have not been impressed with either of the two coalitions.
More and more voters believe that the ousted MVA government is better for the development of the State and for social harmony. However, voters seem to think that Shinde’s government has done a better job of providing basic services, such as water, electricity, and roads. In many cases, voters were willing to admit that during the last two years of Mahayuti’s rule, at least, everything had ‘stayed the same’. If the situation remains the same, will the voters punish the remaining government for not improving things or will they be happy if the government does not let the situation deteriorate further?
Mahayuti scheme
Overall, the proportion of voters who said they were dissatisfied with the remaining Shinde government was smaller than the proportion who said they were satisfied. About one in five voters are satisfied with the government and less than that (18%) are dissatisfied. A major factor for the Shinde government is the considerable reach of various welfare schemes floated by the Central and State governments. It will be interesting to see if this helps Mahayuti overcome various other concerns of the voters. What is important is that the survey shows that among people who benefit from welfare schemes, there is no clear trend in favor of the government.
The main concern
When asked what issues are most important when voting, nearly half of respondents cited unemployment and rising prices. Voters think that prices have risen and corruption has increased over the past five years, so it’s unclear who will punish this. But two things are clear: first, voters do not see price increases as routine; they think that prices have increased especially in recent times; and secondly, more voters think that corruption has increased during Shinde’s tenure.
For the past few years, the biggest question has been about the Maratha reservation. While there was a general consensus in support of the demand for reservation to the Marathas, it was anyone’s guess as to how the Maratha community would react to this. Opinions are divided on whether the leader of the war for the Maratha cause, Manoj Jarange Patil, should send a candidate. Previous surveys have shown that the Maratha vote is divided between parties, but contrary to expectations, Maratha voters do not seem to be adversely disposed towards Mahayuti. In fact, when this survey was conducted, Mahayuti had an advantage among Maratha voters.
Thus, when the election process begins, Mahayuti expects that his aggressive campaign on the welfare scheme will garner votes. However, the mood of the voters seems to be somewhat ambivalent. Overall, while satisfied with the current government, voters expressed concern about unemployment, inflation, and corruption.
Published – 21 October 2024 02:50 IST
