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Mumbai: Ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha and Maharashtra assembly elections, the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are wary of the latest entrant in the state, the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), playing spoilsport, just the way some other parties had in the 2014 and 2019 polls.
Over the past week, various Congress and NCP leaders have in their interactions with cadres or the media, raised concerns about Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao’s BRS possibly dividing votes in the Opposition space and indirectly helping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The murmurs in the Congress and NCP have become louder with KCR visiting Maharashtra for two days Monday, with all his cabinet colleagues from Telangana, BRS lawmakers and senior party leaders in tow. The leaders are visiting Pandharpur — where lakhs of Warkaris, who follow the Bhakti tradition devoid of caste structures, will culminate their Wari (annual pilgrimage) later this week.
In line with its bid to expand its footprint beyond Telangana, the BRS has been making aggressive efforts to build a base in neighbouring Maharashtra.
Leaders from both the Congress and the NCP say that while its efforts may not yield great results in Maharashtra, KCR’s foray into the state could force a repeat of the 2014 and 2019 general elections.
In 2014, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) had allegedly dented the Congress’s vote bank in a few seats in Maharashtra, while in 2019, the Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA) led by Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar is believed to have hurt the Congress-NCP’s chances in a few seats.
ThePrint reached Harshvardhan Jadhav, the former MLA from Kannad in Aurangabad who joined BRS in March as coordinator, over phone and text messages, but received no response till the time of publication of this report. The article will be updated if and when a response is received.
Jadhav is also the son-in-law of Union minister and BJP leader Raosaheb Danve.
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Entry of BRS — repeat of 2014, 2019?
Addressing party workers in Mumbai last week, NCP leader Ajit Pawar said, “In tomorrow’s election, we cannot ignore BRS and Vanchit. Remember this. Last time there was just Vanchit, but this really impacted the Congress-NCP alliance. The MLAs who get elected by a slim margin of a few thousand faced a problem. MPs faced trouble.”
“In the election, however much we try to create a conducive atmosphere, we should think about these things too. We should take care to avoid division of votes of a similar ideology,” he said at the event marking NCP’s foundation day.
In 2014, the AIMIM contested 24 of Maharashtra’s 288 assembly seats and won in two, attracting a section of the Muslim population that was disillusioned with the Congress. According to Election Commission data, in the seats the party contested, it drew a vote share of 13.16 percent.
Opposition votes in 2104 were also split owing to the Congress and NCP having had a fallout and deciding to contest the election separately.
The AIMIM’s presence on top of that is believed to have contributed to the Congress losing at least three seats, namely Nanded South, Aurangabad East and Bhiwandi West.
The Congress won 42 seats that election, and an analysis of votes suggests that it could have won these three too had it got the AIMIM’s share of votes.
For example, in Bhiwandi West, the Congress had 39,157 votes, while the BJP won 42,483. The AIMIM got 4,686 votes, which if they had gone to the Congress, would have secured the seat for the party.
Similarly in Nanded South, the combined votes of the Congress and AIMIM were 66,352, much higher than the winner’s votes. The then undivided Shiv Sena won the seat with 45,836 votes. In Aurangabad East, the Congress and AIMIM’s votes add to 81,471, much higher than the winning BJP’s 64,528.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, AIMIM had tied up with Prakash Ambedkar’s VBA, which is believed to have cost the Congress and NCP seven of the state’s 48 Lok Sabha seats. The VBA registered victory in one seat — Aurangabad, where AIMIM’s Imtiaz Jaleel won against Chandrakant Khaire, a Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) faction leader.
In that election, the Congress had managed to win just one seat — Chandrapur. The NCP won four, namely Baramati, Raigad, Shirur and Satara.
In the 2019 assembly elections, which AIMIM and VBA contested separately, the former won two of the 44 seats it contested, while the latter fielded candidates in 236 seats, but could not win a single one.
Congress and NCP leaders, however, claim that the two parties damaged their chances in more than 20 seats. The Congress won 44 seats in that election, while the NCP won 54.
‘BJP’s B-team’
The Congress, which is in direct political rivalry with the BRS in Telangana, has slammed Telangana’s ruling party for allegedly helping the BJP by being its “B-team” in Maharashtra.
Speaking to reporters in Mumbai Monday, Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole said, “Telangana’s BRS is the BJP’s B-team and this will have no impact on Maharashtra’s politics. Everyone knows who benefits from such a division of votes. In Telangana, many BRS leaders are joining Congress. The Telangana pattern is as deceitful as the Gujarat pattern.”
Similarly, last week, senior Congress MLA and former chief minister Ashok Chavan told reporters in Hingoli that the BRS needs to clarify its political stand.
“A doubt comes to mind whether the party is helping the BJP. They say we are giving free water, and electricity in Telangana, bringing investments. But does BRS have the strength to form a government in Maharashtra? At the most it will get one or two MLAs then how will it implement all these schemes in Maharashtra? Then isn’t it like lying to people?”
Chavan said the party’s stand would have been clearer had it decided to join hands with non-BJP parties while keeping its political identity intact.
The BRS has held rallies on Chavan’s home turf of Nanded.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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