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ShareWho is the hero of the Maharashtra elections? If you believe the electronic media, it was indisputably Raj Thackeray. If you believe me, it was the voter, at least the 50 per cent who bothered to turn up. Let me tell you why.
But first, Raj Thackeray. He has undoubtedly had some influence on the results of these elections, as he did with the Lok Sabha polls earlier in the year. To start with, the MNS took away six seats from the Sena-BJP in Mumbai. Then in getting six per cent of the total vote, the MNS not only won 13 seats in the states but it also hurt the Sena-BJP in about 20 other seats. But analysts miss one important point: any split in a political party is bound to hurt one or both of the entities. If the Congress and the NCP had not fought the election together, the combine couldn't have formed the government, either this time or earlier. If you recollect, there was a lot of brave talk of the Congress going it alone. But this was before the election and it remained brave (actually foolhardy) talk only. The Congress has learnt its lesson from previous elections: you contest an election without seat-sharing arrangements with like-minded parties and you end up losing what you could have won.
I have heard several Shiv Sena spokesmen blame the MNS factor for its own poor showing. To hear them talk you would think that
the MNS was a Congress creation or that Raj Thackeray was the villain of the piece. None of them wants to acknowledge -- or perhaps none of them dares to say it out loud -- that the MNS breakaway from the Shiv Sena was
a result of the failure of Bal Thackeray to
resolve the succession issue. As one has seen in several family-owned industries, these
issues are never easy to handle, but elder statesmen are supposed to gain wisdom with their grey hair, which is why several industrial families have arrived at solutions which have been acceptable to all concerned. If that didn't happen with the Shiv Sena, it's not the fault of Raj Thackeray.
When I say the hero of the elections is the voter, I don't mean just this election but the general election of 2009 and the one before that as well. These are the polls that coincide with the decline of the BJP. I am not playing partisan politics here; I am just observing that the voter has become disillusioned with the BJP's refusal to see India as a modern nation state. The BJP has floundered because its Ram Mandir-Hindutva based success went
to its head. It forgot that the voter and voting trends are dynamic, not static. Even the
voter who had earlier been for Hindutva
politics now wanted to move on. The world was changing rapidly around him and he wanted to be part of that change. That meant a focus on developmental issues, on policies that promote inclusive growth and do not
get side-tracked into matters relating to caste and religion. It's possible I am reading too much in to this; perhaps it's not really a trend... But something tells me that I am at least partially right. That, in fact, was the reason LK Advani and company floundered so much: they felt the scenario was changing but couldn't quite grasp it, and found themselves out of touch with the electorate.
If this reading is right, the Marathi manoos issue will not be as important in 2014 as it is now. Even now it's an urban phenomenon, and that too confined to major cities like Mumbai. If the new Congress-NCP government that will be formed soon gets its act together and addresses the issue on a war-footing, it will lose its relevance even further in five year's time. Perhaps Raj Thackeray will find another theme then, but that's to be seen in the years to come. As things stand, it's the electorate which is growing up and it's the political parties which are failing to keep up.
