Maharashtra Election Preview: A Saga Of Unnatural Coalitions, Political Surprises In Turbulent Decade

Campaigning for the Maharashtra assembly election wrapped up Monday evening, with both the ruling coalition and the opposition alliance facing their most intense political contest since this year’s Lok Sabha polls.

The two major political alliances are vying for control over India’s wealthiest state. The Mahayuti alliance consists of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the Nationalist Congress Party of Ajit Pawar. On the other side, the Maha Vikas Aghadi includes the Congress, the Shiv Sena faction led by Uddhav Thackeray, and Sharad Pawar’s NCP.

Maharashtra has 288 assembly constituencies and is divided into five subdivisions: Konkan (home to Mumbai and Thane metros), Western Maharashtra, Marathwada, Vidarbha and Northern Maharashtra also called Khandesh.

Here's a quick roundup of Maharashtra's politics over the last 10 years:

The BJP, that had for decades been playing second fiddle to its right wing ally Shiv Sena, took a big leap in the state in the elections to Lok Sabha and the state assembly in 2014.

The party scored wins in 23 of the 24 parliamentary seats it contested in alliance with Shiv Sena during the first Modi wave. The performance rolled over six months later in the assembly elections, when it bagged its highest ever tally of 122.

That made the BJP the dominant political force in Maharashtra. Five years later, the Narendra Modi-led party again won the most number of seats in both elections.

The BJP's rise has been attributed to its strategy of cultivating support among non-Maratha communities in Maharashtra, particularly OBCs, and appeal beyond its traditional upper caste base.

The Marathas, who constitute nearly a third of the state's population, have long been the key backers of Congress and its ally—the Sharad Pawar-led NCP—alongside dalits, tribals and Muslims.

Even though the BJP and Shiv Sena, as well as Congress and NCP, fought the 2014 assembly polls separately, parties in the two blocs subsequently rejoined forces. That gave Maharashtra its first BJP chief minister in Devendra Fadnavis, who governed for five years.

The saffron allies fell apart after a relatively muted win in the 2019 assembly polls. Tussle over chief ministership strained BJP-Shiv Sena ties and the state saw political upmanship, as deadlock loomed over forming a government where no single party had a simple majority.

In a stunning turn of events, the BJP allied with Ajit Pawar and an NCP faction he led to form a government, only for an embarrassing collapse three days later.

Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar then formed the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance of the two parties and the Congress. Thackeray became CM and the MVA completed nearly half its term.

Political equations went for a toss again in mid-2022, when senior Shiv Sena leader and Thackeray family confidant Eknath Shinde led a rebellion, through tacit support from the BJP.

The Thackeray government collapsed within days and the BJP extended support for a new Shinde-led administration.

A year later, another rebellion teared up the NCP into two factions: one led by deputy CM Ajit Pawar and the other by Sharad Pawar.

Maharashtra saw two unnatural alliances govern the state within a span of four and a half years.

The Mahayuti of BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP lagged in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The alliance won only 17 of the 48 seats in the state, while the MVA bloc bagged 30.

In terms of vote share, the Mahayuti managed to have a marginal edge over the opposition.

Unexpectedly, the Congress emerged as the party number one in the parliamentary elections while the BJP sank below 10.

Over nine crore voters in India's most industrialised state will head to polls on Nov. 20 to decide which alliance they favour for the next five years. Results will be known on Nov. 23.

In the mix of the political narrative is the contentious Maratha reservation demand, ideological incoherence among all leading parties, governance models, leadership of the Thackeray and Pawar families, agrarian distress and the impact of costly welfare schemes like cash handouts to women. The fate of the two Senas and the NCPs will also be on the line.