Hope for Congress in Latur as Deshmukhs launch Matang-Muslim-Lingayat ploy
The brains behind the strategy is Amit Deshmukh, who is serious about taking over as Congress top gun in Marathwada after Ashok Chavan defected to the BJP
LATUR: After massive victories in the past two Lok Sabha elections, the BJP is this time struggling to retain the Latur constituency. The reasons are many: apart from the anger among farmers and the Maratha community and the non-performance of sitting BJP MP Sudhakar Shrangare, the Congress’ gambit of putting up a Lingayat candidate, Dr Shivaji Kalge, has queered the pitch for the BJP, which has always depended on Lingayat voters.
The brains behind the strategy is Amit Deshmukh, who is serious about taking over as Congress top gun in Marathwada after Ashok Chavan defected to the BJP. Amit, who was silent in the past two LS elections, has now sprung into action; it is an open secret that it was only on his insistence that the Congress gave a ticket to Kalge, who was a BJP office-bearer around seven years ago. The entire Deshmukh family, women included, is campaigning for Kalge’s victory and to also regain its past glory in Latur.
Latur was once a Congress bastion on account of leaders like Amit’s father Vilasrao Deshmukh and Shivraj Patil. After Vilasrao’s demise in 2012, the Congress lost a leader with a mass base. As a result, in 2014 and 2019, the BJP won the Latur Lok Sabha seat easily and with good margins. But this time around, the sailing won’t be smooth, say political observers.
Amit’s political tactics include the formation of a new caste equation called MaMuLi. The acronym is a throwback to the past—Vilasrao had lost the 1995 assembly elections when he called his local opponents “mamuli” (ordinary), which was interpreted as an acronym targeting Latur city’s prominent Marwari, Muslim and Lingayat communities. In these elections, Amit has come up with a new MaMuLi (Matang, Muslim and Lingayat) formula to benefit Dr Kalge.
The Congress has joined hands with local leaders of the Matang community which is upset with the BJP for denying a ticket to its sitting MLA Sudhakar Bhalerao in 2019 and rejecting the demand for a Matang candidate from Latur in these elections. Muslims are already against Narendra Modi and the BJP due to their politics of communal polarisation. The Lingayat community, which supported the BJP for over a decade after Shivraj Patil’s retirement, could now be lost to the party on account of the Congress’ ploy of giving a ticket to Kalge. The total number of voters belonging to the MaMuLi community is a substantial seven lakhs.
Amit is also making efforts to unite the Maratha community to vote against the BJP. The community is already furious with the BJP, particularly in Marathwada, due to Manoj Jarange-Patil’s reservation agitation coming to nought.
The disquiet caused by these political equations and the Deshmukh family’s leadership was clear in the BJP’s campaign in Latur. Union minister Nitin Gadkari held a rally to campaign for Shrangare. The speeches of leaders like Ashok Chavan, who tried to pacify Marathas on the issue of reservation, and local leaders reflected the worry about Maratha, Lingayat and Matang voters possibly flocking to the Congress. Local BJP leaders in their speeches urged voters not to succumb to caste-based political equations and vote for the “development politics” of Modi.
Despite the tall talk, the BJP itself went all out to woo Lingayats at a corner meeting in the Azad Chowk area, known as a Lingayat bastion. The party ensured that leaders like Archana Patil—daughter-in-law of Shivraj Patil—and Rajya Sabha MP Ajeet Gopchade addressed the meeting. Both Patil and Gopchade made an emotional appeal to Lingayat voters on the grounds that “to vote for the BJP is to vote for Lingayat pride”. “I was not made an MP for the work I did for the BJP and RSS but because I belong to the Lingayat community,” said Gopchade. “We are known as committed BJP voters, so this time don’t take any other decision for emotional reasons.”
A local BJP office-bearer accepted that there would be a close fight this time due to the Lingayat Congress candidate and the Deshmukh family. He also accepted that there was an internal demand for a change of candidate as the sitting MP had done nothing in the last five years. “There are challenges due to unrest among farmers and new caste combinations,” he said. “But people will vote for PM Modi and his work for Hindutva like the Ram Temple at Ayodhya.”
Shrangare expressed confidence that the people would vote for the so-called development work of Modi. “Besides this, I will work to resolve Latur’s water problem and a project to bring water from other areas through the water grid project,” he said.
Congress candidate Kalge said that people were fed up with the BJP’s politics of communal polarisation. “Farmers are angry about less money for their crops,” he said. “The common man is facing problems like inflation and unemployment. The basic democratic structure of the country is in danger. The sitting MP has not been visible in the last five years. People have decided to vote for change.”
Farmers Baliram Paulkar and Nandkumar Akangire expressed unhappiness over the diminished crop value and predicted that it would affect the election results. “I have voted only BJP all along,” said Akangire. “But thanks to the central government’s agricultural policy, farmers are facing losses. In the last 10 years, crop value has not risen but the prices of seeds, fertilisers and pesticides have shot up. Now we are about to collapse so there’s no question of our continuing to support the ruling alliance.”