Mahayuti seizes a Maha mandate, Soren keeps his Jharkhand crown
The BJP-led alliance won decisively in Maharashtra, while JMM secured a second term in Jharkhand, reshaping national political dynamics.
A three-party alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept Maharashtra in a record-busting victory and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) propelled the INDIA bloc to an unprecedented second consecutive term in Jharkhand, bringing the curtain down on the final round of elections this year and setting the stage for renewed churn in national politics.
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The Mahayuti secured a three-fourths majority in India’s second most populous province on the back of a clinical campaign that plugged the lacunae of its Lok Sabha drubbing, and built a new pan-state coalition with women-focussed welfare promises, Hindutva consolidation, and smart alliance management. Stellar performances by the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) also sealed a fractious debate on the legacy of these two regional stalwarts.
In contrast, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) failed to capitalise on the momentum of its Lok Sabha performance as it struggled to cross even the 50-seat mark in an assembly of 288. The Congress and its alliance partners Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) were decimated across the state as senior leaders were trounced on the back of a listless campaign that failed to read the changing mood on the ground.
In the east, JMM chief Hemant Soren crafted a personalised campaign based on his tribal identity to rout the Opposition and win a near-two-thirds majority for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in the mineral-rich state. Soren, who was jailed for around five months earlier this year on corruption charges, bridged the tribal vs non-tribal fault line in the state with a welfare formula of his own, mixed with tribal pride and a sympathy wave.
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The decisive victories by the incumbents in both states underlined the continued importance of welfare, and the growing role of the women and the swing voter.
The astonishing scale of the Mahayuti victory in a state where the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) performed poorly in the Lok Sabha polls just four months ago will energise the BJP and renew its momentum at the national stage. Seen alongside its surprising victory in Haryana last month and its stellar performance in the Uttar Pradesh assembly bypolls – the NDA won seven out of nine seats, compared to the Samajwadi Party’s two – the party will believe that its underwhelming Lok Sabha showing was more of a blip.
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The monster victory will also likely pave the BJP’s path towards a majority in the Rajya Sabha and bolster the party as it embarks on signature big-bang reforms such as simultaneous elections. It also ignited a race for the chief minister’s chair, with all three constituents making a pitch
In contrast, the MVA’s dismal showing even in pocket boroughs – senior leaders of all three constituents lost their seats across the board – suggested that its impressive Lok Sabha tally (it won 30 out of the 48 seats) was more of a flash in the pan. The Congress’s poor showing and its inability to take on the BJP in head-to-head contests – the party lost 57 of the 66 seats where it took on the BJP – will weaken its bargaining position within the INDIA bloc as well as in Parliament.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the BJP’s performance historic and an endorsement of its development agenda.
Speaking at the party headquarters in Delhi in the evening, Modi also repeated his signature “Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain (if we stay united, we’ll be safe)” slogan, saying that it had become a maha (major) mantra of the country. During the last two weeks of the campaign, the BJP used the slogan to effectively argue that Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes (OBCs) should remain united and not fall for the Opposition’s promises of a caste census.
“People have made divisive forces bite the dust. The Congress and its allies have failed to grasp the changed realities of the country’s mood,” the PM said.
Modi pointed out that the BJP, at 132, had more seats in Maharashtra, than the entire MVA. This is the best performance of the BJP in Maharashtra, and a remarkable turnaround from the Lok Sabha tally in June.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hailed the Jharkhand performance.
“Heartfelt thanks to the people of Jharkhand for giving a huge mandate to India. Hearty congratulations and best wishes to chief minister Hemant Soren ji, all the workers of Congress and JMM for this victory...The results of Maharashtra are unexpected and we will analyse them in detail,” he posted on X.
In the extraordinarily chaotic Maharashtra elections, where six big mainstream parties competed for the first time in the state’s history, the BJP and its allies opened up humongous majorities in every region. The BJP won 132 seats out of the 149 it contested, followed by the Sena with 57 out of 81 contested, and the NCP with 41 out of 59 contested. The architects of this victory were the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin scheme that gave ₹1,500 per month to poor women, Modi’s Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain slogan, and a data-driven, disciplined campaign that focussed on each constituent’s strengths. chief minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar thanked the state for Mahayuti’s show, which saw the alliance improve its vote share by around eight percentage points over its Lok Sabha showing.
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“This is the record-breaking victory of Mahayuti. We are thankful to the whole of Maharashtra,” Shinde said.
Shinde and Ajit Pawar also underlined that theirs were the true inheritors of their parent parties’ political capital.
In contrast, the MVA was saddled with protracted seat negotiations, mushrooming rebels and a lacklustre campaign that harked on questions of the Constitution and caste census even as their traction on the ground was fast diminishing. As a result, the Sena (UBT) won 20 seats out of the 95it contested, followed by the Congress with 16 out of 101 contested, and the NCP (SP) with 10 out of 86 contested.
The depressing performances by Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar also posed existential questions for their factions as well as their political legacy. It settled, once and for all, the questions raised by the vertical splits in the Sena and the NCP in 2022 and 2023. No party in the MVA was in a position to claim leader of the Opposition status in the state assembly.
“People have given their mandate and people have accepted Eknath Shinde as the real Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar has got the legitimacy of NCP,” Fadnavis told reporters.
In Jharkhand, Soren successfully leveraged his jail stint to fashion an emotive campaign around his tribal identity to emerge as the undisputed leader of the community that forms close to a fourth of the state’s population. The INDIA bloc won 56 out of 81 seats, compared to 21 by the BJP.
He also pushed his wife Kalpana Soren into prominence, and entrusted ally Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal to shore up performances in non-tribal seats. The JMM was buoyed by the response among rural women to its Mukhyamantri Maiya Samman Yojana, which gave ₹1,000 to poor women. By making the cash transfer scheme the centrepiece of its welfare outreach, the party was able to build a new catchment of voters in those 68 seats where more women voted than men. In the end, the JMM ended up winning 27 out of 28 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes.
“We have passed the exam of democracy in Jharkhand; I express my gratitude to the people for this stupendous performance,” Soren said.
The blockbuster results, especially in Maharashtra, will have a deep resonance on national politics. The BJP will believe it has negated whatever setbacks it suffered this summer and will now push anew to break new frontiers, including in Delhi and Bihar next year.