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No clear picture in Marathwada

The voters in Marathwada have confused the poll pundits. And every political party is left guessing as to what will be the outcome of the coming assembly and parliamentary elections from this region.

If you go to any political party office in any district of Marathwada, all of them will give you the famous one-liner, "We will surely win by a comfortable majority."

Be it the Shiv Sena, BJP, the Congress or the recently formed Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar, all of them trundle out the same line.

The Congress is hoping that the anti-incumbency factor against the state government will work in its favour, apart from voters teaching Sharad Pawar a lesson.

The Sena-BJP, on the other hand, is banking on the fact that the Pawar-engineered split in the Congress will see the alliance sail through in Marathwada.

And lastly, Pawar's supporters feel the popular mood all over Maharashtra, particularly in Marathwada, favours them.

Says Arvind Vaidya, political scientist and a lecturer at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, "Nobody can predict the result this time because the people are deciding on the merit of the local leaders and the capacity of these leaders to win elections. This is one of the rare elections where there is no issue and mood among the voters. So, the candidate's personal rapport counts for a lot in this election."

Given this, Vaidya nods towards Pawar and states that his party will win a majority in the assembly and win decently in the parliamentary elections.

Marathwada elects 47 MLAs and 8 MPs.

In Vaidya's opinion Pawar will win at least 25 seats and three Lok Sabha seats from this region. And the big loser will be the Shiv Sena.

The Sena had won 15 seats in the 1995 assembly elections and many observers feel this time its tally will not exceed five seats. However, the expectations are that the BJP will repeat its 1995 performance by winning nearly 11 seats.

A clear evidence of the ire against the Sena is that in the last parliamentary elections, not one out of the four sitting MPs could get elected.

That, despite the fact the Sena's growth in this region having been spectacular. Till as late as 1988 it was nowhere in the picture. But it served notice of its growing clout, when it bagged the Aurangabad municipal corporation.

In 1989, Moreshwar Save became the first Sena mayor of Aurangabad.

In 1989, Save gave his party something to cheer about by being elected to the Lok Sabha from Aurangabad. In the 1990 assembly elections the Sena, with 12 seats, outstripped its alliance partner the BJP, which managed to win only six seats.

The Sena's growth in this region has been due to aggressive Hindutva and being more vocal against local Muslims, as compared to the BJP.

Says Save, now a dissident Sena leader, "Aurangabad always saw the dominance of Muslim politics which was not liked by many Hindus. And when the Sena emerged it gave them an alternative."

Incidentally, Aurangabad has a history of communal divide between Hindus and Muslims. It was one of the most riot-prone areas in the state, and the Sena has managed to emerge as the Hindu counterpoint to Muslim violence.

The Muslim influence over the region goes back to the days of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Interestingly, many Muslims served as Razakars when the Indian army acted against the Deccan state in 1948.

Chattrapati Shivaji's son Sambhaji was imprisoned by Aurangzeb at Bibi Ka Maqbara in this region, and the Mughal emperor's wife's tomb also lies here, all of which lend a certain piquancy to local politics, tinged as it is by communalism.

The Sena took advantage of the Shivaji factor, and demanded renaming Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar. The matter is currently in court, but unfazed Sainiks call the city Sambhajinagar.

Of course, the Sena's growth here is not all about spreading the communal divide. It also provided employment to the youth of the region. One of its candidates, Sandeepan Bhumre, for instance, was working as a peon in Sant Eknath Sakar Karkhana at Paithan, and he is today's its chairman.

"But unfortunately, the newcomers who came in soon became corrupt and arrogant," adds Vaidya.

Says Save, "Many youth also believed that the Sena will get them employment. But, when they realised that nothing happened after filling up the Shiv Udyog Sena form, they left the party. This time many of them are with the NCP as they feel Pawar is a much better leader for Maharashtra."

Another source of resentment against the Sena-BJP is farmers who were promised free electricity. The state government did the maximum it could: by subsiding the power bills by 50 pc.

"This is one of the major issues which will affect the Sena-BJP," says Vidyadhar Sadavarte, executive editor of Sanjhvarta, a popular eveninger from Marathwada.

What goes against Pawar's party, on the other hand, is that the expected exodus into his party, like it happened in western Maharashtra, has not happened.

In fact, one of his close associates, Sahebrao Patil Doondgaonkar, is still with the Congress party.

Interestingly, Doondgaonkar from Aurangabad, and Sharad Pawar from Baramati were the only non-Congress MPs to be elected from Maharashtra in 1984, when the nation was swept by the Rajiv wave.

On the other hand, the Congress has prominent leaders in the region, like Shivraj Patil, Shivajirao Nilangenkar, S B Chavan, and Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Says Mansingh Pawar, brother of Baburao Pawar, the NCP candidate from Aurangabad, "That is the whole tragedy of Sonia Congress, they have only leaders and no party workers. Because nobody in their party knows Maharashtra as well as Pawar."

However, Congress leaders are selling hopes among the people that if the Congress wins the election, the new CM will be from Marathwada, as all the dissidents are in western Maharashtra.

Says Shivraj Patil, former speaker of Lok Sabha and Congress candidate from Latur, "Because of Sharad Pawar, the Congress fared badly in the 1995 assembly elections. And, for the first time in the history of Maharashtra, a non-Congress government got elected. So, there is no substance in this theory that Pawar has a hold all over Maharashtra. He has a hold but it is restricted only to some quarters."

Roughly, this is the break-up of voters in the region. 40 pc Marathas, 30 pc Muslims, 15 pc Dalits, 10 pc Lingayats who are mostly based in the border districts of Latur and Osmanabad, and 5 pc Vanjaras, Marwari and others.

The Maratha community is divided among the NCP, Congress, BJP and Sena. Thus, the crucial question is, which way will the Muslim and Dalit votes go?

Says Sadavarte, "The Shiv Sena and BJP could unite the Hindu community till the 1996 elections. But this time, due to the anti-incumbency factor, it will face problems from Hindu voters like it did in the 1998 parliamentary elections. The only advantage to them is that Muslim and Dalit vote will be divided. Any candidate who gets these two votes is a sure winner."

And that's why, he feels, Pawar will lose heavily.

"I feel the Congress will gain. Because the anti-incumbency advantage will go to it as Pawar's party is still new and many people still cannot associate themselves with the 'clock' symbol."

But Pawar's supporters feel the Dalits will side with him because he was the one who carried out the renaming of Marathwada University.

"Moreover, the RPI-Athavale faction has some hold over Marathwada, and that will work to Pawar's benefit."

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