“Unka Sankalp, Vipareet Bharat”
“Sab ka Naash, Sab ka Vinaash”

THE dates for the assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand have been announced. While in Maharashtra elections will be held in a single phase as in 2019, they will be held in Jharkhand in two phases this time instead of five phases as in 2019. While the time-table of the elections might not have a direct bearing on results in Maharashtra, the conduction of elections in Jharkhand in two phases this time might favor the BJP, if the security arrangements prove to be inadequate.
The question that looms large in the minds of concerned citizens is whether the shocking victory of the BJP in Haryana will prove to be a booster dose for the Modi-Shah duo, instead of the forthcoming assembly elections being the first big nail in their political coffin?
The post-mortem of Haryana elections has blamed the Congress for losing a race which the voters had won for them. Many Haryana-based journalists, who have been in the field for the last four decades, firmly believe that the people of Haryana would never forgive the Congress for pushing them into another five years of the BJP’s misrule.
The most important factor, they believe, was the inability of the local Congress leadership to handle the 17 Congress rebels who contested as independent candidates and who spilt Congress votes leading to the BJP victory. Smruti Irani produced a video titled “Sanghavami Yuge Yugem,” showing an RSS “kaaryakartaa” on a bicycle hailing the RSS for BJP’s victory.

EVM MANIPULATION
THE blatant partiality of the Election Commission under Rajeev Kumar, and the perceived indifference of the Supreme Court to complaints regarding the EVMs, will ensure that allegations by Congress candidates in 20 constituencies regarding the manipulation of EVMs will not affect the results of the elections.
Another factor pointed out by political analysts responsible for Congress’ defeat was the total absence of micro-management by local Congress leaders and abdication of responsibility by the Congress High Command. The High Command seems to have assumed that Rahul Gandhi’s popularity and the BJP anti-incumbency factor would alone be sufficient for Congress’ victory. That proved to be a disaster.
Political analysts have been pointing out time and again that the be-all and end-all of BJP’s existence is to fight and win elections and their micro-management at the booth level is active 24×7 throughout the year. In politics, the term micro-management is a euphemism for the “saam, daam, dand, bhed” tactics at the grassroot level. The Congress has been lacking in such micro-management and their defeat is attributed largely to this lacuna, whenever they fight the BJP alone.
The Haryana results will not have any bearing on elections in Maharashtra. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which has the Shivsena (UBT faction), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress (INC) as its constituents, will be fighting the elections as a single organism. The positive chemistry and arithmetic within the alliance so far has not faced any insurmountable problems.

MARATHI PSYCHE
THE “Marathi” psyche which pervades both the NCP and the UBT Shivsena, the historical discomfort of Maharashtra towards the economically strong Gujarat, the perceived partiality of the Modi-Shah duo in diverting huge FDI projects to Gujarat instead of locating them in Maharashtra, and the relatively better micro-management of NCP and Shivsena (UBT) as compared to the one of the Congress, are factors that will ensure the victory of the MVA in the 2024 Assembly Elections.
The internal squabbles within the BJP, Shivsena (Shinde group) and NCP (Ajit Pawar group) and the widespread anger among the Marathi voters against Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar for ditching their mentors, may be the main factors causing the NDA defeat, in spite of the last minute distribution of freebies by the Shinde government.
It will be extremely risky for the MVA to assume that their spectacular performance in the Lok Sabha polls will repeat itself without any hitch. They not only have to fight the BJP, but the RSS, the Election Commission, “godi” media, the ED, the CBI, the Income-Tax Department, the financial muscles of the BJP built up through unconstitutional Electoral Bonds, the illegal Shinde government – all working as a team to perpetuate the Modi-Shah rule.
The defeat of Modi-Shah duo rule in Maharashtra and Jharkhand is largely seen as the beginning of the end of the BJP rule at the Centre.
Can WE, THE PEOPLE in Maharashtra expedite the exit of the Modi-Shah controlled BJP rule over our national politics?