Saturday's verdict in Maharashtra makes the 2024 assembly elections one of the most consequential in the state's history. It marks not just the highest-ever tally for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but also the lowest-ever for the Congress in what has long been a Congress-minded state.
So severe is the Congress drubbing that its entire top brass, including Balasaheb Thorat, one of the architects of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), and former chief minister (CM) Prithviraj Chavan, lost. The party that contested 101 struggled to cross a tally of 15.
These results will also likely accelerate the decline of the two regional parties that have long dominated politics in Maharashtra. From being a raucous, robust nativist Hindutva party of Balasaheb Thackeray, the idea of the Shiv Sena lies weakened and attenuated despite Eknath Shinde's performance. It is perhaps ironic that the rise and fall of the Shiv Sena is tied so intrinsically to the Congress.
Though forged in the heat of the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement in 1966, the Shiv Sena emerged as Bombay's very own power-centre in 1985 when it swept the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections. This was made possible by the tacit support of then Congress CM Vasantdada Patil, who sought to cut down his own party's leaders, including Murli Deora, a Marwari. Vasantdada had famously remarked, "Bombay is the capital of Maharashtra, but there is no Maharashtra in Bombay," and he went to the extent of endorsing Balasaheb Thackeray's nativist position on barring entry of outsiders who came looking for jobs into the city.
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