Unable to carry forward the winning strategy employed during the Lok Sabha polls, Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) suffered a total rout in the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections, leaving political pundits working overnight to decipher the mandate. Most of all, the downturn of Congress is something that is quite shocking as post Lok Sabha result, it found itself basking in glory only to bite the dust six months later in the crucial Assembly elections. Even the staunch Congressmen have no ready-made answers as to what went wrong. The stalwarts of Congress in State, Prithviraj Chavan and Balasaheb Thorat, were swept in the MahaYuti wave. Thorat was Congress Legislature Party leader in Maharashtra Assembly and Chavan is one of its tallest leaders and former Chief Minister. Hence, these two losses would sting the party most. Not to mention the fate of Nana Patole, President, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC), hanged in balance till the last ballot was counted. It was almost game over for Patole, but the postal ballot count saved him the ignominy of defeat in the polls.

 

His defeat would have been more crushing for the Congress. Congress high command was never in picture from the day one, as it was arm-twisted by its alliance partners during seat distribution to lacklustre campaign by leadership that cost the MVA dearly. During Lok Sabha, Congress had won 13 seats in Maharashtra and its vote share was 16.92 per cent which nosedived by almost 6 per cent that resulted in major drawback for the grand old party. An analysis shows that Congress lacks a commanding figure in State who has pan-Maharashtra base. Patole, who was trying to put up an aggressive posture saw brakes being applied by party high command on him at behest of alliance partners, particularly Shiv Sena (UBT). As Patole was refusing to cede crucial seats where he was sure Congress had advantage, only to find himself sidelined by party high command during seat sharing talks.

 

And the man tasked with adjustment with alliance partners, Thorat, was himself humbled from his stronghold in Western Maharashtra. Though Congress tried to match BJP’s strategy by deputing experienced leaders from neighbouring States to oversee the election process, they were lone warriors while the saffron party leaders brought along their entire election machinery from Madhya Pradesh and that worked wonders. Compared to BJP, Congress stuck to old tape of Constitution in danger, rather than sticking to ground reality, identifying pressing issues of people, and hence it fell aside. One more striking point is that MVA, especially Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharad Pawar), lacked formidable candidates as their bigwigs crossed over to Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar faction respectively. These big leaders of two regional parties also took away the party cadre with them leaving newcomers with little scope to establish their grip.

 

During the seat sharing talks for Assembly election, both Shiv Sena and NCP (SP) were trying to dominate Congress, they seemed to be wary of latter’s growing stature in Maharashtra. So the seat sharing talks got stalled particularly over Nagpur South and Ramtek Assembly constituencies as Shiv Sena (UBT) was insisting on fighting these seats despite being aware of fact that its party base does not exist here. In Ramtek, Shiv Sena (UBT) cut a sorry face as its official nominee could not even save the deposit. Had the constituency gone to Congress then perhaps Rajendra Mulak could have sailed through. In absence of party symbol, he lost out to Shiv Sena’s (Shinde) Adv Ashish Jaiswal. BJP’s well-oiled election machinery is envy of any party and Congress now finds itself in totally demoralised state. Atleast now, Congress needs to back its leaders who have mass connect. One significant point is in of 16 seats that Congress won from Maharashtra, nine seats were from Vidarbha.