Farmers’ woes, voters’ list discrepancies, promises forgotten — the list of what could hit the Mahayuti at the ballot box is growing. The ruling dispensation has only a few months to fix what ails it
(From left) Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his deputies Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar. Pic/Ashish Raje
Farmers are once again on the streets demanding a complete loan waiver as promised during the 2024 Assembly poll campaign by the Devendra Fadnavis-Eknath Shinde-Ajit Pawar alliance: Mahayuti.
In the past few months, massive damage has been caused to crops due to excessive rain, with 29 of the 36 districts and 253 talukas badly hit. Of the 1.43 crore hectares sown this monsoon, nearly 68 lakh hectares have been damaged, including 60,000 hectares where fertile topsoil has been washed away.
To tackle the crisis, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced a Rs 31,628-crore relief package, the largest in the state’s history.
But the relief announced by the government did not reach thousands of affected families and farmers before Diwali, as promised. This is resulting in rising anger among the “kisan” fraternity and their families, and threatens to snowball into a growing trust deficit.
For now, the government has quickly announced a committee to study and recommend a waiver policy within six months. The move has come as a big relief for Mahayuti. The committee report will come after the elections. But it has not solved the current problem. Whether it is a delay tactic or genuine efforts of the government, the current remedy is not a solution to the issue. Many in the villages who then had backed the “Triple Engine Sarkar” are wondering whether the same pack of leaders is running out of steam.
Shifting to cities, the story changes, but the anger and the target remain the same. The entire Opposition has come together to raise questions about irregularities in the electoral rolls. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and, adding to the bandwagon, the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has joined those who are making allegations of “Vote Chori”. The Opposition may not have solid proof, but their claims are catching the public’s attention and becoming a talking point at every “nukkad” (street corner).
Raj Thackeray added fresh fuel to the allegations by claiming that the state has nearly 96 lakh voters (fake, duplicate or with errors), with about 8 lakh each in Mumbai and Thane alone.
The Opposition’s accusation is that elections are nothing but “match fixing” by manipulating the voters’ list. The MNS and MVA leaders claim genuine voters’ names have been deleted and duplicate or fake entries have been found, to substantiate their claims of deliberate tampering in the electoral rolls to tilt the contest. The Opposition is demanding that elections not be conducted unless door-to-door verification of every name is completed to ensure the election reflects people’s real voice and not fixed results.
Although allegations are directed against the Election Commission, the government’s reputation is at stake as the rival camp is trying to build a narrative that anomalies in voters’ list are deliberate, if not engineered, to benefit the ruling party regime.
In rural areas, the fight is about survival and in urban areas it is about fairness. These two protests have started building a wave of perception against the ruling regime led by CM Fadnavis and his deputies, Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde.
As the BJP, Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP face tough battles on two fronts, the Mahayuti leaders are addressing problems through reactions, press releases and social media posts.
The Supreme Court has set January 31, 2026, as the final deadline to hold local body elections across Maharashtra, including 29 municipal corporations and several rural bodies.
Politics runs on performance, but one has to agree that perception is equally important for any political party to continue in power. Even if both issues fade before polling day, scars and feelings may continue to fester within voters and reflect in the ballot box.
The Mahayuti is reportedly planning to go solo in several local body polls, especially where the Opposition appears weak. The idea is to test the “triple engine” government’s independent strength to understand its actual grass-roots reach and popularity. But, this strategy will hurt ruling alliance partners, as, at present, the discontent against the Mahayuti seems to be high. A miscalculation will prove costly as it will not only hurt the poll prospectus but also deepen the existing cracks within the Fadnavis-Shinde-Ajit partnership, exposing tensions that the ruling alliance partners so far have managed to keep under wraps.
This means the state government has less than three months to get its political house in order. The growing anger in villages will directly impact elections for Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis, while unrest in cities like Mumbai could shape the outcome of civic polls in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and 28 other urban bodies.
If the government is serious, those at the helm of affairs need to quickly fix the problem before damage is done beyond repair. And, the only way to fix the issue is to win back angry farmers’ trust in rural areas and in metro cities to come out with a solid reply and evidence to counter the Opposition’s claim.
Sanjeev Shivadekar is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @SanjeevShivadek
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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