Politics of Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state in the western region of India and is India's third-largest state by area. It has over 112 million inhabitants and its capital, Mumbai, has a population of approximately 18 million. Nagpur is Maharashtra's second, or winter, capital.^[1] Government in the state is organized on the parliamentary system. Power is devolved to large city councils, district councils (Zila Parishad), sub-district (Taluka) councils, and the village parish councils (Gram panchayat). The politics of the state are dominated by the numerically strong Maratha–Kunbi community. There are national and regional parties in the state, serving different demographics, such as those based on religion, caste, urban and rural residents.

Government structure[]

State Government[]

Vidhan Bhavan (State Legislative Assembly), Nagpur. The assembly meets here for the winter session

The government of Maharashtra is conducted within a framework of parliamentary government, with a bicameral legislature consisting of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and the Maharashtra Legislative Council. The Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) is the lower chamber and consists of 288 members, who are elected for five-year terms. There are 25 and 29 seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and others, respectively.^[2] The Legislative Council (Vidhan Parishad) is the upper chamber and is a permanent body of 78 members. The government of Maharashtra is headed by the Chief Minister, who is chosen by the party or alliance with a majority of members in the Legislative Assembly. The Chief Minister, along with the council of ministers, drives the legislative agenda and exercises most of the executive powers.^[3] However, the constitutional and formal head of the state is the Governor, who is appointed for a five-year term by the President of India on the advice of the Union government.^[4]

Maharashtra in Indian Parliament[]

Maharashtra elects members to both chambers of the Indian Parliament. Representatives to India's lower chamber, the Lok Sabha, are elected by adult universal suffrage, and a first-past-the-post system, to represent their respective constituencies. They hold their seats for five years or until the body is dissolved by the President on the advice of the council of ministers. Representatives to the upper chamber, the Rajya Sabha, are elected indirectly by the Vidhan Sabha members. Maharashtra elects 48 members out of 543 total elected members of the Lok Sabha and 19 out of 233 elected members of the Rajya Sabha.

Local government[]

A Gram panchayat office in a Abdul Lat village, Kolhapur district

The state has a long tradition of highly powerful planning bodies at district and local levels.^[5] Local self governance institutions in rural areas include 34 zilla parishads (district councils), 355 Taluka Panchayat samitis (district Sub-division councils) and 27,993 Gram panchayats (village councils). Urban areas in the state are governed by 27 Municipal Corporations, 222 Municipal Councils, four Nagar Panchayats and seven Cantonment Boards.^[6][7] Although Maharashtra had Gram panchayat with elected members since 1961, the 73rd amendment to the Indian constitution of 1993 put in place a statutory requirement of 33% of seats on the panchayats reserved for women, the scheduled castes, and the scheduled tribes.^[8] In addition, 33% of the sarpanch (panchayat chief) positions were also reserved for women.^[9] Although the amendment boosted the number of women leaders at the village level, there have been cases of harassment by male members of the panchayat towards the female members of the organisations.^[10] The administration in each district is headed by a District Collector, who belongs to the Indian Administrative Service and is assisted by a number of officers belonging to Maharashtra state services.^[11] The Superintendent of Police, an officer belonging to the Indian Police Service and assisted by the officers of the Maharashtra Police Service, maintains law and order in addition to other related issues in each district. The Divisional Forest Officer, an officer belonging to the Indian Forest Service, manages the forests, environment, and wildlife of the district, assisted by the officers of Maharashtra Forest Service and Maharashtra Forest Subordinate Service.^[12] Sectoral development in the districts is looked after by the district head of each development department, such as Public Works, Health, Education, Agriculture and Animal Husbandry.^[13][14]

Political parties & alliances[]

Sharad Pawar, A dominant political figure of Maharashtrian politics for more than forty years

Bal Thackeray, Founder of Shiv Sena

Since its inception in 1960, and also of predecessor states such as Bombay, the politics of Maharashtra has been dominated by the Indian National Congress party.^[15] Maharashtra became a bastion of Congress party stalwarts such as Yashwantrao Chavan, Vasantdada Patil, Vasantrao Naik, and Shankarrao Chavan.

Sharad Pawar has been a significant personality in state and national politics for nearly forty years. During his career, he has split Congress twice, with significant consequences for state politics.^[16][17] After his second parting from the Congress party in 1999, Sharad Pawar formed the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) but joined a Congress-led coalition to form the state government after the 1999 Assembly elections.

The Congress party enjoyed a nearly unchallenged dominance of the state political landscape, until 1995 when the coalition of Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured an overwhelming majority in the state, beginning a period of coalition governments.^[18] Shiv Sena was the larger party in the coalition. From 1999 until 2014, the NCP and INC formed one coalition while Shiv Sena and the BJP formed another for three successive elections, which the INC-NCP alliance won. Prithviraj Chavan of the Congress party was the last Chief Minister of Maharashtra under the Congress-NCP alliance that ruled until 2014.^[19][20][21]

For the 2014 assembly polling, the alliances between the NCP and Congress and between the BJP and Shiv Sena broke down over seat allocations. In the election, the largest number of seats went to the BJP, with 122 seats. The BJP initially formed a minority government under Devendra Fadnavis; but in December 2014, Shiv Sena entered the Government and provided a comfortable majority in the Maharashtra Vidhansabha to the Fadnavis-led government.^[22]

In the 2019 Loksabha elections, the BJP and Shivsena fought under the NDA banner, whereas the Congress and NCP were part of the UPA. The two alliances remained intact for the legislative assembly elections in October 2019. The BJP and Shivsena together gained the majority of seats in the assembly but could not form government due to squabbles between the two parties. The BJP–Shivsena alliance came to an end in early November 2019, with Shivsena subsequently forming a new alliance with its longtime rivals, the NCP and Congress, to form the new state government on 28 November 2019.

Other parties in the state include the All India Forward Bloc, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, the Communist party of India, the Peasant and workers party, the All India Majlis-e Ittihad al-Muslimin, Bahujan Vikas Aghadi, the Samajwadi Party, various factions of the dalit-dominated Republican Party of India, the Bahujan Samaj Party, and the Socialist party.^[23]

Dominant groups in Maharashtra politics[]

After the state of Maharashtra was formed on 1 May 1960, the INC was long without a major challenger. The party also enjoyed overwhelming support from the state's influential sugar co-operatives, as well as thousands of other cooperatives, such as rural agricultural cooperatives involved in the marketing of dairy and vegetable produce, credit unions etc.^[24]

For the better part of the late-colonial and early post-independence periods in Bombay state and its successor, Maharashtra state, the politics of the state has been dominated by the mainly rural Maratha–Kunbi caste,^[25] which accounts for 31% of the population of Maharashtra. They dominated the cooperative institutions; and with the resultant economic power, controlled politics from the village level to the state Assembly and the Lok Sabha.^[26][27]

In 2016, of the 366 MLAs (Legislative Assembly has 288 MLAs and Legislative Council has 78) combined, 169 (46%) were Marathas.^[28] Major past political figures of the Congress party from Maharashtra—such as Keshavrao Jedhe, Yashwantrao Chavan[vasantrao Dada Patil],^[29] Shankarrao Chavan, Vilasrao Deshmukh, and Sharad Pawar—have been from this group. Of the 19 Chief Ministers so far, as many as 10 (55%) have been Maratha.^[30] Since the 1980s, politicians from this group has also been active in setting up private educational institutions.^[31][32][33]

Following disputes between Sharad Pawar and the INC president Sonia Gandhi, the state's political status quo was disturbed when Pawar defected from the INC, which was perceived as the vehicle of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, to form the Nationalist Congress Party. This offshoot of the Congress party is nevertheless dominated by the Maratha community.

Shiv Sena was formed in the 1960s by Balashaheb Thackerey, a cartoonist and journalist, to advocate and agitate for the interests of Marathi people in Mumbai. Over the following decades, Shiv Sena slowly expanded, and took over the then Mumbai Municipal corporation in the 1980s.Although the original base of the party was among lower middle and working class Marathi people in Mumbai and the surrounding suburbs, the leadership of the party came from educated groups. However, since 1990s there has been shift in leadership with many middle level leaders creating personal fiefdom for themselves and their families with the use of strong-arm tactics. Hansen has termed this as the "dada-ization" of the party.^[34] By the number of Marathas elected on the Shiv Sena ticket in the last few elections, the party is emerging as another Maratha party.^[35]

The BJP is closely related to the RSS and is part of the Sangh Parivar. The party originally derived its support from the urban upper castes, such as Brahmins and non-Maharashtrians. In recent years the party has been able to penetrate the Maratha community by fielding Maratha candidates in elections.^[36]

The Shiv Sena–BJP coalition came to power at the state level in 1995, which was a blow to the Congress party. In 2006, a split within Shiv Sena emerged when Bal Thackeray anointed his son Uddhav Thackeray as his successor over his nephew Raj Thackeray. Raj Thackeray then left the party and formed a new party called Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). Raj Thackeray, like his uncle, has also tried to win support from the Marathi community by embracing anti-immigrant sentiment in Maharashtra, for instance against Biharis.^[37]

After the Maratha–Kunbi, the Mahars are numerically the second largest community. Most of the Mahars are followers of Buddhism and fall under the scheduled caste (SC) group. Since the time of B. R. Ambedkar, the Mahar community has supported various factions of the Republican Party of India (RPI). There are 25 seats reserved for the SC. Parties such as NCP, BJP, and the Congress field candidates from other Hindu SC groups like Mang and Chambhar for the reserved seats, to thwart the candidates of the RPI.^[38]

2014 Assembly Election[]

Devendra Fadnavis, Former Chief Minister of Maharashtra and leader of opposition in Maharashtra Vidhan sabha

The 2014 assembly election followed a landslide national victory of the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, which brought the Narendra Modi to power as prime minister. All major parties in the state (BJP, Shivsena, INC, and NCP) contested the elections on their own, leading to a complex and much-contested election. The BJP put together an alliance of upper castes, the Other Backward Class (OBC), and to some extent the Dalit to fight the Maratha-led Congress and NCP.^[39] The results were significant in that the BJP received the highest number of seats, despite being historically smaller than Shiv Sena in the state. Although the BJP still required Shiv Sena's support to form a majority, it progressed from being a minor party in state politics to the party of the chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, who held that position until November 2019.

2019 Lok Sabha elections[]

In April 2019, voting for the 48 Lok Sabha seats from Maharashtra was held in four phases.

Despite their differences, the BJP and Shiv Sena once again contested the elections together under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) banner.^[40] Similarly, the Congress and NCP had their own seat-sharing arrangement. The breakaway party of Raj Thakeray, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, did not contest any seats, and instead urged their supporters to vote for the NCP–Congress alliance, Thakre campaigning for candidates belonging to these parties.^[41]

The results of the election on 23 May 2019 was another landslide victory for the NDA, with the BJP and Shiv Sena winning 23 and 18 seats, respectively, out of the total of the state's 48 Lok Sabha seats. The Congress party won only one seat in the state whereas the NCP won five seats from its stronghold of western Maharashtra.^[42]

2019 Vidhan Sabha elections[]

Uddhav Thackeray, 19th Chief Minister of Maharashtra

The BJP–Shiv-Sena and NCP–Congress alliances remained intact for the Vidhansabha elections in October 2019. The BJP and Shiv Sena together gained the majority of seats in the assembly but could not form government due to squabbles between the two parties. The BJP, with 105 seats, was far short of the 145 seats required to form majority and declined to form a minority government. At the same time, Shiv Sena started talks with the NCP and Congress to form government.

On 23 November 2019, BJP formed a government with support from NCP, with Ajit Pawar as Deputy Chief Minister. This government collapsed three days later with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar resigning their respective positions. On 28 November 2019, the governor swore in Uddhav Thackeray, the Shiv Sena chief, as the new chief minister of Maharashtra. Thackeray's governing coalition includes Shiv Sena, NCP, INC, and a number of independent members of legislative assembly .^[43][44]

See also[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Politics of Maharashtra.

• 2009 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election
• 2004 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election
• List of Chief Ministers of Maharashtra
• Panchayat Samiti
• Gram panchayat

References[]

Further reading[]

• Vora, Rajendra (2009). "Chapter 7 Maharashtra or Maratha Rashtra". In Kumar, Sanjay; Jaffrelot, Christophe (eds.). Rise of the plebeians? : the changing face of Indian legislative assemblies. New Delhi: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415460927.