In Maharashtra’s political corridors, it is said that whoever wins Vidarbha, wins the state. Today, most of the major political parties in Maharashtra are led by leaders from Vidarbha, such as Chandrashekhar Bawankule (BJP) and Nana Patole (Congress). Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, as well as Leader of Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar, also hail from Vidarbha.
Nagpur, a major urban centre in the region, is the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The political significance of this region in north-eastern Maharashtra leads to fierce electoral contests here. Let us take a look at the ground situation in Vidarbha in the run-up to the Vidhan Sabha polls expected in November.
Vidarbha has 10 Lok Sabha seats which comprise the constituencies of Ramtek, Bhandara-Gondiya, Gadchiroli-Chimur, Akola, Yavatmal-Washim, Chandrapur, Wardha, Amravati, Buldhana, and Nagpur. The last Lok Sabha elections brought a setback for the incumbent Mahayuti alliance. Out of a total of 10 seats, the opposition alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi won seven. Stalwarts of the Bharatiya Janata Party, like Sudhir Mungantiwar and Navneet Rana, had to bite the dust.
If all Lok Sabha seats are bifurcated Vidhan Sabha-wise, the total number of seats in this region comes to 62. In the 2019 Vidhan Sabha elections, the Mahayuti bagged 42 seats, while the MVA was victorious in 15 seats. Looking at the Lok Sabha results Vidhan Sabha-wise, the picture looks very bleak for Mahayuti. The Mahayuti candidates led in just 22 seats, whereas the MVA was ahead in 35. Of the total votes, Mahayuti got 41.58%, but the MVA was ahead with 44.82% of the votes in the region. The situation was reversed in the 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls when Mahayuti had a higher vote share.
A distinctive feature of Vidarbha politics is that the electoral contests primarily happen between the two national parties, the BJP and the Indian National Congress. The regional parties like Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party or the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena have not been able to make substantial inroads in Vidarbha.
Until 2014, the region was considered a bastion of the Congress, but the BJP was successful in establishing its dominance over Vidarbha in the last 10 years. Apart from big-ticket infrastructural projects like the Nagpur metro, many academic and health institutions were also set up in the region.
Districts like Gadchiroli, Bhandara, Gondia, and Chandrapur were once hotbeds of Naxalism. However, the Fadnavis government of 2014, backed by central forces, tackled the insurgency with an iron hand, and today most of the districts have been declared "Naxal-free". The substantive victory against Maoists is being showcased as an achievement of the BJP in the region. With the decimation of Naxals, the region has become conducive to the setting up of industries, which has offered employment to the locals.
One of the major factors for Mahayuti's dismal performance in the Lok Sabha was farmers' ire against the government. The region has a large number of farmers who produce soybeans and cotton. By providing good support prices for their produce, the Mahayuti government is trying to placate them.
The discrepancies in the voter list have turned out to be one of the major worries for Mahayuti. Names of many voters who voted in the 2019 elections are missing from the present list. The BJP has now initiated a voter enrollment drive.
The party is banking on the image of its stalwarts from the region, like Nitin Gadkari and Fadnavis, for its electoral success. While the BJP is strategising to reverse the impact of its performance during the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress is buoyed by its success. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress won just one seat in Maharashtra, but in 2024, it emerged as the single-largest party by winning 13 seats. The supporters of Nana Patole have already started calling him "CM in waiting".
Jitendra Dixit is an author and consulting editor of NDTV.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NDTV Profit or its editorial team.
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