It is no mean feat to emerge as the single largest party after being confined to just 10 districts in a state like Maharashtra and breaking the alliance with an immensely aggressive Shiv Sena that has been the Big Brother in the state for the last 25 years. So how did the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) achieve this?
1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have won this election single-handedly for the BJP. While other parties kept ridiculing them for not having any face other than Modi, it still worked to the party’s advantage. Modi towered over all. Uddhav Thackeray tried his level best, but couldn’t match Modi’s persona which is now all pervading. Sharad Pawar, Prithviraj Chavan, Raj Thackeray all paled in comparison to Modi.
2. Projecting Modi also helped the party beat the caste equation in the state. Its two probable chief minister candidates Devendra Fadnavis and Nitin Gadkari are Brahmins and would have found it difficult to gain traction with dominant communities as well as the Other Backward Castes (OBCs). It is once again proved that Modi’s face (and powerful oratory) transcends all caste barriers.
3. And yet, one cannot ignore how caste equations played subtly in a state that calls itself progressive, that bears the legacy of Mahatma Phule and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. The Congress-NCP tried to get the backing of the socially-dominant Maratha community by offering reservations just before the assembly elections. But it backfired as the other communities and castes got together behind the BJP. Dhangars (shepherds), the biggest caste after the Maratha community in Maharashtra, started demanding a reservation and while the Congress-NCP leaders held meetings with them, they were not given any assurance. On the other hand, BJP leaders like Devendra Fadnavis shared the dais with the Dhangar community and offered them support if voted to power. The roar that went up during Modi’s meeting in Baramati after he mentioned that Pawar had backstabbed the Dhangar community, said it all.
4. The BJP, plush with its success in the general elections, had all the resources at its command and used them well. The party changed its strategy this time and used the television media more than the social media it had used in the run up to the general elections. The party cleverly used the 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' launched by Modi right in the thick of the campaigning. The masterstroke was airing the speech delivered by Modi at New York's Madison Square Garden in his highly publicised US tour. It was a well-choreographed event and the BJP used it to stoke aspirations of the growing middle-class in Maharashtra.
5. Finally, by not engaging Sena in the debate over who broke the alliance and why, the BJP managed to project itself as an alternative to the Congress-NCP government. Modi kept his focus on the Congress-NCP, which helped the party to cash in on the huge anti-incumbency factor. Sena may have yielded some fruits in stoking the Marathi pride, but BJP scored brownies by targeting the Congress-NCP.
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