E-Paper
Will infra structure rise of saffron alliance?
In the 2019 elections, can the saffron alliance manage a rerun of its 1995 performance in Mumbai, when it swept away as many as 31 of the 34 seats (before delimitation)?
In the 2019 elections, can the saffron alliance manage a rerun of its 1995 performance in Mumbai, when it swept away as many as 31 of the 34 seats (before delimitation)?
The first saffron government in Maharashtra in 1995 came on the back of a clear anti-establishment mandate after the 1993 blasts, as then ruling Congress was relegated to only one seat. Much has changed in the political fortunes since the 1995 polls, especially after the watershed 2014 elections. The big turnaround is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), after the 2014 and 2019 general elections, has emerged as the big brother in the saffron equation, as well as in Mumbai.
With exactly a month to go for the state election, the battle for the maximum city again seems tilted in favour of the ruling saffron allies.
The ruling BJP’s poll card for Mumbai is the Fadnavis-led government’s infrastructure agenda. The government has invested ₹1.5 lakh crore in the city’s infrastructure overhaul, taking forward the former regime’s Mumbai transformation project.
Several pending infrastructure projects such as the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link and Navi Mumbai airport stuck in environmental and social hurdles are now underway, even as six Metro lines are under-construction.
Despite this aggressive plan, the BJP-led government has nothing to show ahead of the polls. Other than implementing the long-pending CCTV project, no big-ticket infrastructure project has been completed so far.
“We are going to ask for votes from Mumbaiites on the basis of PM Modi’s leadership and CM Fadnavis-led government’s performance in the past five years. What we have done vis-a-vis the city’s infrastructure is tremendous. To get six Metro corridors underway is not easy and people can see this. The other big achievement is with regards to law and order and security. There has been no terrorist activity in Mumbai, thanks to installation of CCTV cameras,” said senior BJP leader and state higher education minister Vinod Tawde.
Urban and transport planner Sulakshana Mahajan said the BJP was seen to be leading in the city because it had won the battle of perception among the urban middle class. “The public perception is that the BJP government has invested thousands of crores in infrastructure and these projects will materialise in the next four years. On ground scenario is there has been no improvement in the city’s civic amenities, starting with its potholed roads. There is a big question mark over the government’s plans to build houses on salt pan lands and ongoing projects will take a decade to be completed,” said Mahajan.
She said despite resistance and opposition against the ruling government among people, say fisherfolk in the city or activists in Aarey Colony, the Opposition did not seem to be in a position to cash in on this. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) city chief Nawab Malik, said despite the propaganda, Mumbaiites have suffered during the routine flooding in the monsoon, bridge collapses and bad roads, and this would work in their favour. “The city seems to be dying. The civic as well as state governance has failed Mumbai in the past five years. They have promised big things, but not even delivered basic amenities,” said Malik.
One of the biggest reasons the BJP-Sena seem to have an advantage in the city is the steady weakening of the Opposition. While the NCP, formed in 1999, never really managed to get a grip on the city, the Congress, which had swept Mumbai with maximum seats in 2004 and 2009, has faced a breakdown thanks to internal rivalry and factionalism.
Consider this. Former MPs and city chiefs Sanjay Nirupam versus Milind Deora battle has played out in public, even as the Congress suffered worst reverses in the Lok Sabha. Actor-turned-Congress candidate for Lok Sabha polls Urmila Matondkar resigned from the party within six months of joining it pointing to infighting. Recently, another former minister Kripashankar Singh, who could have been a strong candidate, also resigned from the party.
The Congress sacked its city chief Sanjay Nirupam, just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, and recently accepted the resignation of city chief Milind Deora, before the state elections. New city chief Eknath Gaikwad had less than two months to get the party machinery ready for the elections.
“If the Congress had taken even 10% of the efforts that former president Rahul Gandhi took during the Lok Sabha polls, the situation would have been different. Unfortunately, the Congress seems totally paralysed,” said city-based political analyst Deepak Pawar. “As opposed to this, the BJP has managed to win the battle of perception. They have managed to change the electoral narrative from gram panchayat to state polls, so that so-called nationalistic decisions such as on Kashmir can turn into poll plank even in Maharashtra’s Assembly elections,” he said.
The Congress, however, argued there is a gap between perception and reality. “The economic slowdown and job losses will be an issue in the coming polls, especially in Mumbai. That’s the reason the BJP is trying to use Kashmir to distract voters from reality. We will not allow that to happen. Mumbaiites have also seen the arrogance of the ruling parties during the floods in monsoon and sorry state of roads and civic infrastructure,” said Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant.
The Congress is likely to contest 29-30 seats in Mumbai, whereas the NCP will contest six-seven seats.
Malik said the Opposition was actively looking at mobilising citizens who represented an anti-Modi and anti-BJP constituency, but had not voted in the last election. “Several citizens represent this constituency, where they are ideologically opposed to the BJP and specifically the Modi government. We are specifically targeting such people, who have not bothered to come out and vote,” said Malik.
Besides the Congress-NCP, the third wheel of the Opposition in Mumbai, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which was aligned with the Congress-NCP, is not formally contesting polls with these parties. There is no clarity whether there will be any tacit understanding between these parties and MNS founder Raj Thackeray has not yet even firmed up any plan to contest.
Meanwhile, the BJP and Sena, through their bickering in the past five years, have managed to occupy a large spectrum of political space. In the city, where the Sena controls the civic body, the BJP has often played the role of the opposition. This was more evident in the run-up to the 2017 Mumbai civic polls. And, the Sena has done the same where the decisions wrest with the state government, specifically in case of Metro car shed in Aarey. A split between the allies, who are yet to announce their seat-sharing formula, could, however, change the poll dynamics in the city. “More than any other party, the BJP has, in the past five years, established a direct connect with Mumbai voters based on our development agenda for the city and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership. This was evident when we won 82 seats in the Mumbai civic corporation as well as the Lok Sabha polls,’’ said BJP leader and state education minister Ashish Shelar.
