The political terrain in Marathwada is undergoing a seismic shift ahead of the Assembly polls. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), once the dominant force in the region, has its back to the wall following its catastrophic performance in the recent Lok Sabha election in Marathwada, where the saffron party failed to win even a single seat.
The ruling Mahayuti alliance scored just one of eight Lok Sabha in the region, with CM Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena winning the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar seat even as the BJP scored a naught.The most prominent disruptor here was arguably Manoj Jarange-Patil, the Maratha quota activist who made good his boast of being a ‘political kingmaker.’
Despite his professed disinterest in contesting elections, Jarange-Patil is now set to supplant the established political order by fielding candidates and leveraging his influence. His year-long campaign for granting immediate reservation to Marathas within the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category had directly caused the BJP’s (and the ruling Mahayuti’s) rout in the Lok Sabha election in Marathwada, which saw big leaders like Raosaheb Danve and Pankaja Munde bite the electoral dust.
Jarange-Patil’s continued scrutiny of key BJP figures, especially his sustained verbal assault on Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, has long raised eyebrows about his hidden agenda. But the activist’s Svengali-like hold over the Maratha community, and the subsequent coalescing of an OBC versus Maratha standoff, has made it harder for BJP to walk the tightrope between placating the OBCs and appeasing the Marathas in this region.
While he will not personally contest, Jarange’s strategy involves fielding his own candidates, supporting selected candidates from other parties, and ensure the defeat of rivals. One can guess as to who Jarange’s ‘rivals’ are. Thus far, his agitation has noticeably benefited the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA).
In a region perennially bedevilled by drought and agrarian crises and industrially challenged, emotive issues have always spread like bush-fire – be it Sharad Pawar’s controversial proposal to rename Marathwada University in the 1970s to Bal Thackeray and the undivided Shiv Sena securing a foothold to the rise of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) in the 2000s. Thus, it is no surprise that the latest entrant in Marathwada’s boiling cauldron in Jarange-Patil and his Maratha agitation.
Against this fraught background, the prestige of several BJP and Mahayuti heavyweights are at stake on November 20.
For all its accusations at the Congress for being ‘a party of dynasts’, the BJP has fielded a number of scions from established political families in Marathwada: Shreejaya Chavan, daughter of former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan from the Chavan pocket borough of Bhokar in Nanded district. Chavan, who defected to the BJP from the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha, was thwarted by Maratha community activists while campaigning for the BJP candidate in the general election.
The party has gone with incumbent MLA Sambhaji Patil Nilangekar, grandson of late Congress CM Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar, in Nilanga while Dhanajay Munde, an important Vanjari OBC face and Ajit Pawar’s confidant in the NCP, will be holding the Munde family bastion in Parli.
The BJP has renominated Santosh Danve, the two-term MLA from Jalna’s Bhokardhan, and son of Raosaheb Danve. It will be interesting to watch if the son will be successful in halting the Jarange juggernaut – something which the father failed to do.
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