Be it political analysts, pollsters, or even the public, consider Maharashtra as one of the key states that will impact the outcomes of the 2024 general election. Pollsters openly agree that because of the peculiar party positions in Maharashtra, it will be hardest to predict the result. There are two Shiv Sena and two NCP. The BJP has alliances with a part of the NCP and a part of the Shiv Sena, whereas the remaining parts of the Shiv Sena and NCP are in alliance with a depleted Congress as the MVA contests against the BJP-led NDA. So, there’s a lot of confusion among the public and political analysts as well. However, both pollsters and analysts are of the same opinion that the NDA will incur some losses in Maharashtra compared to their tally in 2019. I also discussed this with many friends, who were unanimous that the NDA is going to lose many seats because the BJP is strong there whereas its present allies are weak.
A couple of days ago, when I was discussing Maharashtra politics with my friend, who resides in Mumbai and has some political awareness, I was shocked to learn that many of us have the wrong perception. For example, we took it for granted that Uddhav Thackeray got the emotional support of the public because the BJP divided his party. According to him, people thought that Uddhav betrayed the BJP post-election result of 2019 and allied with the UPA, whom the public rejected. Eknath Sinde made some corrections because his faction supported the BJP, honoring the public mandate of the 2019 assembly election. Similarly, Sarad Pawer, although he got emotional support from his loyal voters, many NCP supporters are not happy with the NCP allying with Shiv Sena and especially the Thackrays. Frankly, the street rivalry has been between the NCP and Shiv Sena for decades as both were dominant regional parties. Ajit Pawar was the main organisation person who really commanded most of ground worker’s support.
Isn’t it more confusing when one perception is countered by another? So, I was really concerned about why we are not sure what’s going to happen. The best way to deal with such confusion is to dip down into the data to find a reasonable solution. That’s why I started getting into the data and tried to do a logical analysis.
There are two tables of vote share distribution to understand the political position of the past elections. I couldn’t get vote shares for 2004 general election, but I have taken the 2004 assembly election result to get an impression of the impact of MNS in the 2009 onward elections as Raj Thackeray defected from Shiv Sena.
Let’s first analyse both the assembly election and Parliamentary election data.
| Maharashtra Assembly Election Party wise Vote share | ||||||
| Election Year | BJP | SS | NCP | INC | MNS | Others |
| 2004 | 13.67% | 19.97% | 18.75% | 21.06% | – | 26.55% |
| 2009 | 14.02% | 16.26% | 16.37% | 21.01% | 5.71% | 26.63% |
| 2014 | 27.81% | 19.35% | 17.24% | 17.95% | 3.15% | 14.5% |
| 2019 | 25.75% | 16.41% | 16.71% | 15.87% | 2.25% | 23.01% |
Here you can see that the others (Independents, small parties and NOTA) have more vote share than traditional parties like BJP, Shiv Sena, Congress, and NCP. That’s most of the time perhaps ignored, as seats from the other’s category are very few compared to their vote share. On the other hand, Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena were parties with just around 20% vote share till 2009. MNS defected from Shiv Sena during 2009 election and got around 5.71% of the vote share, reducing Shiv Sena to around 16.26%.
In the 2014 assembly election, all four main parties in Maharashtra, contested alone without any alliance with each other. This was the only time to know whose vote share is what, as it’s always difficult to know the exact vote share of a party in an alliance because the distribution of the total alliance vote share depends upon the number of seats it contested as per seat sharing arrangements. For example, in 2014, BJP got the highest vote share 27.81%, which may be due to Modi effect, whereas Shiv Sena got 19.95% of the vote share, an increase to 2009 vote share riding upon sympathy after Bala Saheb’s demise. But in 2019, despite being a member of the alliance, it again returned to 16.41% vote share, whereas BJP got 25.75% vote share, a decrease of 2.05% vote share. However, common sense says that this 2% vote share decrease could have added to Shiv Sena’s vote share because it contested in fewer seats compared to 2014 because of its alliance with Shiv Sena. BJP is the only party in Maharashtra which is increasing its footprint in the state continuously, whereas other three parties are losing space in the state polity.
Now let’s come to Parliamentary election results data.
| Maharashtra Parliamentary Election Party wise Vote-share | |||||
| Election Year | BJP | SS | NCP | INC | Others |
| 2004 | – | – | – | – | – |
| 2009 | 18.17% | 17% | 19.28% | 19.61% | 25.94% |
| 2014 | 27.60% | 20.8% | 16.1% | 18.3% | 17.2% |
| 2019 | 27.84 % | 23.50% | 15.66% | 16.41% | 16.59% |
Here also, one can see that in the alliance, the BJP always has a higher vote share than Shiv Sena, which may be due to the larger seat sharing in the Parliamentary election. It’s interesting to note that BJP got 27.6% of the vote-share in 2014, whereas it got 27.84% vote share in 2019 which means there’s no increase in vote share. But if you see Shiv Sena’s vote share, it got a vote share of 23.50%. Does this increased vote share belong to Shiv Sena? Just see the vote share of Shiv Sena in 2019 assembly election. It’s just 16.41% of vote share. That means the 7% vote share Shiv Sena got is purely a vote share generated by Narendra Modi.
To understand the Modi effect, let me add another piece of data. In 2014, Narendra Modi added small parties in Maharashtra. The NDA’s vote share in 2014 was 51.75%. Now if I add the vote share of the BJP and Shiv Sena in 2014, it becomes 48.4%, which means smaller parties of the NDA (the BJP’s allies in particular) polled around 3.35% of the vote share. If we add, BJP and Shiv Sena’s vote share in the 2014 assembly election, that comes to 47.16%, which means the Modi effect in the parliamentary election is an increase of 4.59% in vote share. Here, UPA’s vote share was 35.02, whereas NCP and Congress’s vote share was 34.4%, which means UPA’s smaller allies got just 0.62% of the vote.
Similarly, in 2019, the NDA’s vote share was 51.34 while the BJP and Shiv Sena got 51.34%, which means that in 2019, no seats were allocated to other allies of the NDA, and the UPA too didn’t allocate any seats to any of their allies in 2019. Now if we compare the vote share of the BJP and Shiv Sena in the assembly election, which was contested in an alliance, it comes to 42.16%. Now just see the difference in vote share between the parliamentary elections in 2019. It’s a staggering 9.18% vote share. UPA’s vote share in the parliamentary election was 32.07%, and their assembly vote share was 32.58. There’s a marginal increase in assembly vote share, but see the other’s vote share in the parliamentary election and the assembly election, it’s a staggering 6.43%. So, these vote shares go to Narendra Modi’s individual charisma.
One more interesting point may be noted. In 2014 and 2019, the other vote share was around 17% in the parliamentary election when Narendra Modi was in the picture. Before that, in 2009, the others had a staggering 26% vote share, more like in assembly elections. In the assembly election, others have more than 23% of the vote share. In 2014, the other’s vote share was just 14.5%, and I don’t think it’s because of Narendra Modi, but rather because all parties were contesting elections alone, thus there were no rebel candidates, and thus the other’s vote share decreased. So, the moment an alliance happens, again, the vote share of the other parties is close to one-quarter.
Now let us analyze, depending on the above facts, what could be the outcome of the 2024 general election. Now let me consider that despite an alliance of six parties into two groups, the other’s vote share will be around 20%. The BJP has a vote share of 27 percent and adds another 7% for the Narendra Modi effect. It goes to 34%. Add another 3% to the vote share of smaller allies. It comes to 37%. Please note that I have taken everything conservatively.
Now, from the remaining 80%, the BJP needs at least a 41% vote share to keep its 2019 position. That means it requires some 4–5% vote share from Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar combined. The NCP and Shiv Sena combined got 33.12% of vote-share in the 2019 assembly election. How much do you think, Shinde and Ajit Pawar will get for the NDA? If a one-third vote share is secured by Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, then that would be around 11%, which means NDA vote share will be around 48%, which means UPA vote share will be 35% even if I reduce others’ vote share to 17%.
There could be confusion in the vote share of a divided Shiv Sena and NCP. But what about Congress’s vote share? It’s continuously coming down and as of 2019, it was a 15% vote-share party. On the eve of the 2024 general election, many big Congress leaders left the party. If there’s any further decrease in vote share, where will it go? Will it go to BJP or others? On the other hand, if Congress increases its vote-share, from where will it do so? From BJP or from others? Is there any impact even if Congress’s vote share increases or decreases by 3-4%?
Readers, I have given the data and analysis as per my understanding. Now you can do your own assessment as per your analysis to arrive at the outcome of 2024 election in Maharashtra, as the data given above is undisputed.
The only caveat is that, despite one’s logical analysis, the outcome sometimes may be very contrary to expectations, as the uncertainty in Indian politics, especially in electoral politics, is not uncommon.