Uncertainties loom as India’s Maharashtra voters head to the polls

The Indian state of Maharashtra will elect a new government next week, amid broken political alliance and

NEW DELHI // With just a week to go before state elections, Maharashtra has found itself on unfamiliar political terrain.

Traditional alliances have ruptured, equations of power have shifted, and old certainties are in a state of flux.

Maharashtra’s voters will elect a new government on October 15, to replace the previous coalition government between the Congress Party and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The results are due to be announced four days later on October 19.

That Congress-NCP partnership has now split. But so has the alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena – the first, a national party that runs the federal government; the second, a party with strong roots in Maharashtra, and both strongly Hindu nationalist in spirit.

The Congress and the NCP have governed the state together for three consecutive terms. But with their popularity on the wane, a BJP-Shiv Sena alliance would have been the clear favourite to win this election.

The dissolution of these partnerships has thrown the contest wide open. So have the BJP’s barnstorming victory in the national election earlier this year and the decline of the Congress, which fared miserably in the same election but won 82 out of 288 seats on its own in the Maharashtra assembly in 2009.

The results of a survey released last week by polling agency CVoter, predicted a hung assembly, giving no single party the outright majority.

Although the BJP is expected to win the most seats, it would need the support of other parties to form the next state government, the survey showed.

The breakdown of old alliances – 25 years in the case of the Shiv Sena and the BJP, and 15 years in that of the Congress and the NCP – was the result of “ego and opportunism”, said Pradyuman Maheshwari, a Mumbai-based political analyst.

"The parties couldn't come to an agreement on how to divide up the seats in the state between themselves," Mr Maheshwari told The National on Wednesday. "It was, in the end, only a matter of a few seats here and there, but each party felt that it deserved more."

In negotiations with the Shiv Sena two weeks ago, the BJP had demanded that it be allowed to field candidates from 135 seats out of the 288 constituencies in Maharashtra, arguing that it had outperformed its partner during the parliamentary elections in April-May. In those elections, the BJP won 23 parliamentary seats, while the Shiv Sena won 18.

“But the Shiv Sena feels that the parliamentary elections are a different game,” Mr Maheshwari said. “They feel that they have a larger cadre in Maharashtra, and that they’re a strong local party, and that they should be the dominant partner.”

The BJP and Shiv Sena have always had a robust and amicable alliance, Mr Maheshwari said, and chances of the two parties reuniting in a post-poll alliance were high. The Congress and the NCP, on the other hand, have frequently been at odds with each other over their division of seats and power, he said.

“It seems that, on the ground, the Congress is really close to being finished. They have very little support,” he said. “So much so that people are even talking about a post-poll alliance that would involve the NCP and the Shiv Sena, which have otherwise been ideological rivals.”

The BJP’s electioneering in the state has been bolstered by the popularity of Narendra Modi, India’s new prime minister and the party’s star campaigner.

Days after returning from a visit to the United States last week, Mr Modi hit the campaign trail in Maharashtra, addressing up to four rallies a day and canvassing votes for his party.

Perhaps realising the exigencies of post-poll arithmetic, Mr Modi said in a rally last week that he would not criticise the Shiv Sena because of his admiration for its founder Bal Thackeray, who died in November 2012.

“This is the first election in absence of the late Bal Thackeray, for whom I have great respect,” Mr Modi said in the town of Tasgaon. “I have decided not to utter a single word against the Shiv Sena. This is my tribute to Bal Thackeray.”

As he has nearly everywhere in India, Mr Modi attracted massive crowds in Maharashtra.

“He’s a draw,” Mr Maheshwari said.

“There’s no doubt about that. He has charisma, and he has this huge connection with the youth, and he has huge amounts of energy.”

Another surprise possibly waiting in the wings is a partnership between the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), a smaller party run by Mr Thackeray’s nephew Raj.

Media reports have suggested that Raj Thackeray has grown warmer towards his estranged cousin Uddhav, Bal Thackeray’s son and the leader of the Shiv Sena.

“The MNS is not the real rival,” an anonymous Shiv Sena leader told the Indian Express newspaper on Wednesday. “Our main rival is Modi.”