Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024: Tussle Over Vidarbha Seats Delays Ticket Distribution

The road to political power in Maharashtra invariably passes through the Vidarbha region. Among the parties, the Congress as well as the BJP firmly believe that this industrially and economically backward region could give them maximum seats in the state elections and help them to ascendancy in Mumbai. No wonder both these parties are driven by the desire to contest form as many seats as possible for Vidarbha.

This is the reason both the parties are fighting with their allies to secure a larger share of seats to field candidates in this region. This tussle for seats is so intense that neither the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi nor the BJP-led Maha Yuti alliance could arrive on an understanding or a consensus, thus delaying the process of issuing of the party tickers even as just little a week left for filing of nomination papers for the November 20 state elections.

For decades, Congress used this region as milch-cow to gain power in Maharashtra. The region stood by the party though it never got a fair deal in terms of development or in issues like resolving irrigation potential which was the reason for agrarian crisis and farmers’ suicides. Even after the Emergency setback, people and leaders of this region stood by the Congress and helped Indira Gandhi’s comeback.

Neglect by the governments over the years saw major migration form this region as youngsters have to move outside to Mumbai, Pune or other parts of the country for better education or for employment which is scarce here. Thus, very significantly, Vidarbha is probably the only region which after the last exercise of delimitation of electoral constituencies saw as many as four State Assembly constituencies and one Lok Sabha constituencies being knocked off.  Thus the number of Assembly seats in the region now stands at 62 down from 66 and Lok Sabha seats 10 from 11.

Since 90s the region has witnessed shifting of political loyalties which majorly hit the Congress electoral fortunes and it lost power in Mumbai and  BJP-Shiv Sena saffron alliance tasted their first victory in state election in 1995. The BJP as well as its Sena (then led by Balasaheb Thackeray) made major inroads in eastern as well as western Vidarbha. The political scene got completely tilted in BJP-Sena favor in 2014 during the Modi wave. That year the BJP-Sena won all theh ten Lok Sabha seats and in six months later in the Assembly elections won 48 of the 62 seats.

However, in 2019 the saffron wave was clearly on the wane. That year the BJP could win only 29 seats from the region, a big decline from 44 in year 2014. The Congress improved its tally winning 15 while its ally NCP managed to win six seats in this region.

What has buoyed the Congress to hoping to make major gains in the upcoming state elections ,is its splendid performance in the recent Lok Sabha elections in which it won seven seats in Vidarbha. The BJP could win only two and the Sena (Shinde) had to content with one seat. In 2019 parliamentary elections, the Congress had won only one seat, Chandrapur. This big jump is the reason the Congress is reluctant to spare any seat to even its allies in the seat-share.

The upcoming election is also important as it would decide the political future of some senior leaders of the MahaVikas Aghadi as well as the Mahayuti—namely Devendra Fadnavis, Chandrashekhar Bawankule,  Nana Patole, Vijay Wadettiwar and the likes of former ministers Anil Deshmukh, Nitin Raut among others.