4 Months After Poor LS Score, How BJP Swept Vidarbha

'Slogans like 'Ek hai toh safe hai' and 'Batenge toh katenge' resonated with voters.'

Dr Vikas K Jambhulkar, associate professor and head of the department of political science at the Rashtasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University in Nagpur discusses the BJP's clean sweep of Vidarbha in the Maharashtra assembly election with Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.

Out of the 62 seats in Vidarbha, the BJP and Congress were locked into a direct fight in 36 seats. While the BJP wrested 38 seats (48 for Mahayuti) in Vidarbha, the Congress could win just nine seats, six less than what it had won in the 2019 assembly election.

"They (the BJP and RSS) had a man-to-man kind of marking system wherein they mobilised a large number of voters on the ground on polling day. That is why we saw the increase in the number of percentage of the people who voted," explains Dr Jambhulkar.

What role did the RSS play in the BJP's victory in Vidarbha?

The RSS worked hard on the ground mobilising to come out and vote. The RSS indeed played a major role in terms of mobilisation of the people.

The programmes given by the BJP were quite definitive and groundbreaking. The Laadki Bahin scheme and its penetration cutting across various social and religious strata was one of the most important aspects of why the BJP performed so well.

Obviously, this scheme, to a very large extent, worked in favour of the BJP and the Mahayuti coalition.

The BJP could win only the Nagpur and Akola Lok Sabha seats but swept Vidarbha in the Vidhan Sabha election. What is it that the BJP did right?

The winning (Mahayuti) coalition were absolutely well synchronised. Their campaign was well synchronised. That was backed up by women-centric schemes that materialised into cash transfers directly into the accounts of the women just before the elections.

This created a certain level of confidence among the women and the immediate benefit actually works psychologically in the favour of the party implementing this scheme and that's what actually happened.

Secondly, they had a very effective messaging strategy.

Slogans like 'Ek hai toh safe hai' and 'Batenge toh katenge' actually resonated (among voters).

Isn't this surprising that religious polarisation became an issue in a region that has perennially suffered due to agrarian crisis and farmers' suicides? Vidarbha, historically, has never voted on communal lines.

In Vidarbha, in the recent past, we haven't seen any communal polarisation and there has always been a strong counter resistance to such kind of polarisation, particularly in Vidarbha. But this time it could have appealed to voters who had voted for the Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) before and led these voters to put their lot behind the Mahayuti candidates.

That is where the shift has taken place. Along with this (communal polarisation), for these voters [who earlier voted for the SS (UBT) and NCP (SP)] the continuation of welfare schemes rolled out by the Mahayuti government mattered the most.

And while the text remained the Laadki Bahin scheme the subtle polarisation on religious lines based on these two slogans underlines the sub-text of the Mahayuti's performance in Vidarbha.

The third is the organisational strength of the BJP, both in terms of its presence at the ground level and the RSS working for the party. The BJP is a well-oiled machinery in a way. They have a robust presence at the grassroots level where people were able to network, mobilise people and even brought them to the voting booth.

They (the BJP and RSS) had man-to-man kind of marking system wherein they mobilised a large number of voters on the ground on polling day.

That is why we saw the increase in the number of percentage of the people who voted. These factors played an important role in terms of bringing a greater voters' slide towards the BJP.

The BJP won only two Lok Sabha seats out of the 10 in Vidarbha, but swept the assembly polls by winning 37 seats out of the 62 it contested. What explains this strong turnaround?

It's quite baffling and certainly we will require more time to understand what exactly has taken place when more data comes in and more research is pulled out.

To begin with one knows for sure that during the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP was complacent; probably they had taken it for granted that it (the pro-incumbency of the Narendra Modi government) will work in their favour.

For the first time after two elections, the agenda was set by the Congress, particularly the 'Constitution khatre main hai' narrative. It was for the first time that the BJP reacted to an agenda that was set by the Congress and they were caught in the blind. Probably that is why the narrative went in favour of the INDIA coalition and the BJP lost heavily in the parliamentary elections.

Why did the Congress, which won five Lok Sabha seats in Vidarbha in 2024, fail to continue with its momentum in the region?

While the Congress was not complacent, their whole narrative backfired. They did put up a fight (with its 'Constitution khatre main hai' narrative) but that didn't resonate with the electorate because this was a state and not national election.

Moreover, the kind of campaign which the Congress built up was hardly any challenge to the campaign that the BJP-led coalition was throwing at them. The BJP was able to set up the narrative particularly with the Laadki Bahin scheme.

The Congress didn't have any strong response to it rather than just an assurance that they will increase the amount to Rs 3,000.

The Mahayuti coalition concentrated more on how their schemes were benefitting women.

If you remember, in 2014 the BJP's campaign was more concentrated on galvanising the youth and their voting percentage had increased; so the youth segment was targeted.

In 2024 they concentrated on women when they saw that the number of women voters was rising and it was necessary to increase women's vote share in their favour. The Laadki Bahin scheme was launched with an eye on this rising number of women voters.

Once they succeeded in doing this they straightaway had an advantage over the INDIA coalition. They were banking upon a 3 to 4 per cent shift in women voters in their favour and that is what they succeeded in doing, resulting in a massive sweep for the Mahayuti.

Why didn't issues like the agrarian crisis, farmers' suicides, falling soya bean and cotton prices play any role in who the people voted for in this election?

The Mahayuti government came up with welfare schemes which cut across classes -- whether farmers, workers, daily wagers and women.

The benefits of these welfare schemes appealed across classes. They were able to successfully mobilise all these sections.

They had also launched a scheme for youth, particularly to counter the unemployment narrative. They came up with a stipend scheme and internship programme where they gave Rs 10,000 to students as remuneration. They created this programme whereby they provided internships to young students and that helped them control the damage they could have suffered from the issue of unemployment.

While keeping the Laadki Bahin scheme at the centre of their welfare schemes, the Mahayuti designed and articulated other schemes to revolve around their flagship welfare programme. This greatly nullified the Congress' Lok Sabha narrative where they even promised Rs 8,000 in the accounts of women and unemployed.