Have the people of Maharashtra rejected the watered-down Hindutva? Are there no takers for Shiv Sean’s (UBT) soft Hindutva when the aggressive Hindutva of the BJP is available on sale? Has Uddhava Thackeray lost the charisma his father once enjoyed and swayed the elections the way he wished?

The Maharashtra result has not shocked the poll pundits, but it has certainly indicated a new shift in the state’s politics. Now, the social fissures and clashes appear deeper than ever before. The social chasm is so deepening that the people ignored the anti-incumbency factor and the government’s alleged misdeeds. The narrative of Hindutva has proved to be a dominant factor.

The BJP made its intention ample clear at the beginning when it raised the slogan of “batenege toh katenge”. After UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath coined this slogan in the wake of the killing of Hindus in Bangladesh, the saffron party lapped it up and decided to play it as a trump card. It successfully played this card to polarize the voters in the Haryana Assembly Elections 2024.

Buoyed by the success of Haryana, the BJP not only raised this slogan, it also kept repeating the same ignoring the objections of its coalition partners. Not only Ajit Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party, but BJP’s own Pankaja Munde also felt unease and rejected this slogan. However, Devendra Fadnavis remained nonchalant to these objections and kept on harping. He had reasons for the same. Earlier Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain”. Indeed it was a subtle move with its message written on the wall.

The election results have also left a strong message for Udddhav Thackeray who chose to water down the aggressive Hindutva, practiced by his father Bal Thackeray. He visited the Muslim-dominated areas, and on one such occasion, he was gifted a copy of the Marathi version of the Quran, which he accepted happily. Thackeray talked about job opportunities, development, and Maratha pride and interpreted it as his way of Hindutva.

Political analysts believe, the masses rejected the soft Hindutva and preferred the stronger one, practiced by the BJP.

There were other reasons as well. The coalition of opposition parties comprising the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), and the NCP (Sharad Pawar) failed miserably also to its lack of leadership and internal bickering. There was no amicably accepted leader, all satraps claimed to be leading the team with no chief minister’s face. It not only created confusion among workers but also left the voters groping in the dark.

The Maharashtra election may further push the Congress down as it has lost the election at a time when it needed a win most desperately. Though the Congress succeeded in pushing the BJP to a corner and stopping it at less than a majority on its own, it failed to make any headway further.

The Mallikarjun Kharge-led party performed miserably in Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Elections, it won only six seats garnering just 18% of votes. It also lost the Haryana Assembly Elections unexpectedly thanks to the consolidation of non-Martaha votes. The grand old party won 37 seats in the 90-member house and got 39.09% of votes.  The Congress performed more miserably in the Maharashtra Assembly Election 2024.

With these election results, it is clear that the grand old party has failed to feel the pulse of the masses and reach out to them. It may come out with great ideas, its leadership may challenge the ruling coalition and put Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the dock, but the masses have not voted for it.

PM Modi has once again proved his charismatic leadership. His plans clicked at the right time and succeeded in convincing the masses, who voted for the saffron party and its allies.

The coming days will be more difficult for the Congress and Rahul Gandhi as they will come under attack more frequently and the leadership will be challenged by coalition partners of the INDIA bloc.