Monday Musings: Can Kasba Peth be bellwether for upcoming civic polls?

If the MVA snatches Kasba Peth from BJP, it can be considered the first important victory after the grand alliance taking shape and can be perceived as a precursor to civic polls scheduled in various cities including Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik and Aurangabad

More than two months ago when Kasba Peth legislator of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Mukta Tilak passed away, there was unease in the party. One, the party had lost a bright MLA belonging to Tilak family, and another - bypoll at this juncture when all eyes in political circles in Maharashtra are on imminent rulings from Supreme Court and Election Commission, was something the party wouldn’t have preferred.

In Hemant Rasane, BJP has fielded an old guard having a grip on the area through his own network of being Ganesh mandal worker. (HT FILE PHOTO)

It’s the first election after BJP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena government was installed in Maharashtra in June last year. The change in the regime has for the time being further cemented ties between Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Congress, and Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, all of them looking to put up a joint front against the rising power of BJP.

Bypoll at Kasba Peth, which accounts for central parts of Pune, has offered them this opportunity especially when stakes for BJP are more than MVA given that the seat has consistently been represented by the saffron party for around the past three decades.

If the MVA snatches Kasba Peth from BJP, it can be considered the first important victory after the grand alliance taking shape and can be perceived as a precursor to civic polls scheduled in various cities including Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik and Aurangabad. Earlier when bypolls were held after 2019 – be it North Kolhapur, Pandharpur, Andheri East, or Nanded - the seats were represented by MVA members and their passing away necessitated polls. The stakes, therefore, for a grand alliance were high and in most cases except Pandharpur, the MVA retained the seats.

Since 1990, BJP has retained the Kasba seat with Girish Bapat, now Lok Sabha MP, representing it five times in a row. In most of the elections, the contest was triangular, or in some cases, four-cornered.

The situation however is different in this election, scheduled on February 26.

It is probably for the first time in the past few decades, that Congress has managed to keep the contest straight by convincing rebels as well as those even with a thin chance of being vote-eaters to withdraw from the rest. Congress efforts paid off with its rebel candidate Babasaheb Dabhekar withdrawing his nomination.

It is for the first time Congress is fighting polls in alliance with two major and multiple smaller parties. With strong support from NCP and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray camp), Congress has managed to put up a strong weight behind its candidate Ravindra Dhangekar. In 2019, when Congress had only one alliance partner in NCP, Tilak won the polls by a margin of 27,000 votes. There was a Shiv Sena rebel Vishal Dhanawade in the fray and he managed to garner around 13,000 votes.

On previous two occasions (2014 and 2009), Dhangekar managed to garner sizeable votes although he had to taste defeat in assembly polls. At the same time, BJP after three decades has chosen a non-Brahmin face for Kasba Peth, even at the cost of denying a ticket to the family member of deceased MLA Mukta Tilak. In Hemant Rasane, BJP has fielded an old guard having a grip on the area through his own network of being Ganesh mandal worker.

Traditional, sizeable number of voters stood behind BJP when votes among rivals got split. This time even as BJP is banking on Brahmin votes, they are not adequate for Rasane to ensure his victory. There is no official data available, but rough estimates suggest Brahmins account for around 13 per cent of the constituency, which has seen a massive demographic change in the past few years. Most parts of this constituency have seen locals relocating to other areas over the period renting out their spaces for commercial establishments.

If BJP manages to retain the seat, MVA will have a tough time sticking together. It will be BJP in alliance with Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena expanding its base and can take on MVA that will have to deal with addressing internal fault lines when civic elections are not so far.