This would give BJP the chance to explore Constitutional options for government formation if there is no clear-cut mandate, explains Sheela Bhatt.
The election campaign for the Maharashtra assembly's 288 seats has been aggressive but confusing.
It also lacks a strong pan-Maharashtra emotive issue over which the people would vote for or against.
It is always difficult to have a pan-Maharashtra issue that resonates across the state given its size; for example, the distance between Mumbai in the West and Gondia in the East is around 1,000 km -- almost the distance between Mumbai and Bengaluru in the south.
In landlocked Vidarbha, for example, soyabean and cotton prices are serious issues for farmers, while in the Konkan coastal region the high rate of unemployment among youth and influx of North Indian labour are issues.
In Marathwada the dominant issue is reservations for Marathas.
In cosmopolitan Mumbai the sentiments among local Marathi voters are totally different. There is a feeling among a section of them that Gujarat is cornering projects worth billions of rupees at the cost of Maharashtra.
However, this issue is not being picked up sharply because regional parties like Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray don't want to alienate the sizeable Gujarati votes in Mumbai.
Around 94 million voters are being wooed by the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, three factions of the Shiv Sena and two factions of the Nationalist Congress Party.
Apart from them, there are some caste-based parties, and parties led by Prakash Ambedkar and Asaduddin Owaisi also in the fray.
Adding to confusion are the many influential Independents who have thrown in their hat.
Many analysts believe that depending on voting percentages, the victory margin of candidates will not be high.
The confusion began with the Lok Sabha election results in which the Sharad Pawar-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi won 30 seats and the Mahayuti led by the BJP won only 17 seats.
Out of this, the Congress won 13 while the BJP won a mere 9 seats.
But the voting percentage tells another story.
The difference between the votes earned by the MVA and Mahayuti was only around 200,000.
If one considers the Lok Sabha results the MVA has a clear edge.
But the BJP argues that people vote differently in assembly elections, more so in Maharashtra where since the late 1990s the electorate has voted in a coalition.
The high-decibel BJP propaganda shows that the party has changed its strategy completely in the assembly election.
The economic distress all over the state is visible, and precisely because of it the government's Laadki Bahin project is a hit.
Around 20 million women in the state have received Rs 7,500 so far. It has helped create a 'feel-good' factor for the ruling Mahayuti alliance.
Both the MVA and Mahayuti have inherent contradictions, and some of their differences are beyond a solution.
As a result they couldn't declare their respective chief ministerial candidates.
Sharad Pawar has fully understood the gravity of the situation.
This election is not a minor regional battle.
If the BJP wins it will help it to maintain the balance of power within the National Democratic Alliance in its favour and against the Opposition too.
If the MVA wins all the regional parties will get a boost.
The Maharashtra election is a turning point in national politics because after winning Haryana the BJP would like to prove that the Lok Sabha setback was an aberration and UP-centric.
A Congress defeat in Maharashtra will hit the Opposition's politics in New Delhi.
If you hear the speeches of Modi, Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath in Maharashtra it's evident that the target of their attack is only the Congress.
The BJP's desperation is understandable. If the BJP loses Maharashra the party and Modi government will both face new crises, while the bargaining power of its allies and critics will receive a fillip.
When Modi was sworn in as PM for the third time his critics' first reaction was that this government will not be stable. But if the BJP wins Maharashtra, it will cement the stability of the central government.
If the BJP wins Maharashtra, a rejuvenated BJP will get more ambitious in taking political decisions as well as many big-ticket decisions.
Pawar had been warning the Congress and Rahul Gandhi that a defeat in Maharashtra will mean much more than losing a state.
It will seriously set back the Congress after the gains of the Bharat Jodo Yatra and Lok Sabha elections.
Since long Rahul's leadership has been considered weak in creating a robust party machinery that would work round the year in districts and manage the election booths.
If the Congress wins above 70 seats out of the 102 that it is fighting from, it will strengthen Rahul because most of the seats will come by defeating the BJP.
Reportedly, Pawar wanted Rahul Gandhi to agree to Uddhav Thackeray as the MVA's CM candidate.
It has its plus and minuses but the biggest advantage would have been clarity vis a vis the Mahayuti.
After the election even if the Mahayuti wins Eknath Shinde is highly unlikely to continue as the CM, and the BJP is keeping complete silence over the issue.
Uddhav's candidature would have put pressure on the BJP to spell out its CM choice.
To checkmate the all-powerful-axis of Maratha-Muslim-Dalit voters that helped the MVA perform brilliantly in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP is playing up slogans like 'Batenge toh katenge' to raise Hindutva fever and 'Ek hai toh safe hai'.
It is to counter Rahul Gandhi's appeal for a caste census that would help revise the quota system on the basis of the actual caste population.
In Haryana the BJP garnered the anti-Jat votes by working silently on non-Jat castes.
Here it is covertly working for OBC votes who have traditionally kept a social distance from the Maratha caste.
In Maharashtra OBCs consist of more than 330 sub-castes and Dalits have more than 55 sub-castes.
The BJP is trying hard to unite them.
This assembly election is being fought on local sentiments, local issues and the strength of candidates in each constituency.
More than the party, at most places the candidates are important.
In around 70 seats the Congress faces the BJP directly.
The BJP faces a test is in the Vidarbha region.
Sharad Pawar's test lies in the Marathwada region while Uddhav Thackeray will take on his former aide Eknath Shinde in Mumbai and Thane regions.
In the maddening state of election campaign, where around a dozen BJP leaders are fighting on non-BJP symbols, the BJP is trying hard to bag much more than the 105 seats that it won in 2019.
It is concentrating on becoming the single largest party. That would give the BJP a chance to explore Constitutional options for government formation if there is no clear-cut mandate.
The Congress is trying its best to go local and ensure the BJP doesn't get a pivotal position after the results.
At the regional level, the Pawar and the Thackeray families are fighting for their existence.
At the national level, the Congress and BJP are engaged in a psychological war through the Maharashtra election campaign.
The outcome on November 23 will have a decisive impact on the Modi versus Rahul battle on the national stage.
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
