Mahayuti’s nuts-and-bolts campaign
Mahayuti’s superior handle on the campaign logistics meant that each of the three alliance members focussed on their individual constituencies and regions
If there’s anything more trying than the heat-and-dust of the Indian election campaign trail, it is the final hours of nominations closing for any poll. Party managers handle scores of documents, notarised affidavits, B-forms, and supporting documents to be submitted in grubby government offices before the deadline, while other troubleshooters work behind the scenes to convince rebels and smaller candidates to withdraw. Even by these standards, the run-up to the Maharashtra elections was extraordinarily chaotic as both jumbo alliances – the Mahayuti and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) – struggled to keep a handle on 40-plus rebels on each side, and work out internal seat share pacts. Even by 5pm on November 4, the last date of withdrawal of nomination, the contours of the electoral battle were not clear.

But in that disarray, there was one clear front-runner that managed rebels, focussed on building a disciplined campaign, and working on plugging weaknesses – the Mahayuti. As MVA leaders squabbled in public and struggled to put together an emotive campaign, the Mahayuti worked on neutralising factors such as Maratha anger (which hurt the Bharatiya Janata Party in Marathwada in the Lok Sabha elections) and Dalit dissonance (which buoyed the Congress in Vidarbha). Both from Delhi and Mumbai, the focus was on smart alliance management, which is key in an election where six major and around 20 smaller outfits were in the fray. Leaders such as Bhupender Yadav broke the state down into safe and swing seats, apportioning resources and leaders to maximise the catchment area. In India’s second-most populous state, grassroots campaigning is important given the breadth of the province and the disparate regions that have distinct identities and issues. Mahayuti’s superior handle on the campaign logistics meant that each of the three members – the BJP, the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) – focussed on their individual constituencies and regions and did not allow some contradictory statements to disrupt a coherent campaign.
As the campaign progressed, the Mahayuti fine-tuned its surveys, reaching out to every constituent and community possible, painstakingly turning groups that voted adversely four months ago into allies. The ideological backbone of the campaign was provided by the grassroots army of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which fanned across the length and breadth of the state and helped carry the ruling combine’s message to every home.
In the MVA, the picture was the opposite. In a repeat of the Haryana fiasco, the Congress and its allies took far too long to get off the blocks, complacent in their Lok Sabha victory (the MVA had won 30 of the state’s 48 seats, compared to the Mahayuti’s 17). But hidden in that performance was the kernel of a more competitive fight. Just like in Haryana, the NDA had done far better assembly segment wise than what the headline Lok Sabha numbers suggested. Even as Mahayuti leaders hit the campaign trail, MVA leaders struggled to tide over rebels and hammer out an internal seat pact – the delay damaging the momentum gained by the combine this summer. The MVA also dithered on candidate selection and on building an emotive campaign, focussing on questions such as the future of the Constitution that were beyond their sell-by date and had stopped generating the kind of emotive response they had in the Lok Sabha. Too much time was spent on discussing who a possible chief minister could be than on reversing the Mahayuti’s rapid regaining of ground across the state.
Even when it found itself outgunned by the resource-rich opponent, the MVA failed to make the campaign emotive or effectively utilise its senior leadership. At no point in the campaign could it generate the kind of viral moment that could boost its flagging march – akin to the photograph of an elderly Sharad Pawar addressing a rally alone in the rain that galvanised supporters and pushed the united NCP past 50 in the 2019 assembly elections. Its manifesto promises, too, came late in the day.
The result was a complete reversal of the Lok Sabha show. Not only did the Mahayuti reverse its losses, it also managed to expand its vote share from this summer; the BJP posted its best-ever performance in the state, bettering its breakthrough show in 2014, and its two major partners both trounced their regional rivals – and decisively. In the contrasting styles and eventual fates of the two campaigns was the story of a historic victory, one that has the potential to change the vocabulary of Maharashtra politics.
