Valuable lessons BJP needs to learn from Maharashtra and UP results

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made what might be a fatal mistake on the evening of June 30, 2022.Uddhav Thackeray announced his resignation as chief minister of Maharashtra after the Supreme Court refused to stay then Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s advice to the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) to undergo a floor test in the state assembly on July 1. Events then moved quickly. Shiv Sena rebel Eknath Shinde was sworn in as chief minister. A visibly upset Devendra Fadnavis, who served as CM in the BJP-Shiv Sena government between 2014-2019, announced he would not serve as deputy CM and instead would work for the party from outside the government. It took phone calls from then BJP President JP Nadda, home minister Amit Shah and finally Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convince Fadnavis to accept his demotion. The Delhi-based BJP high command had misread the situation in the state. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar minced no words: “I don’t think Devendra Fadnavis has accepted the number 2 position of deputy CM happily. It can be seen on his face. But he had lived in Nagpur, it is his ethos as an RSS swayamsevak. So he accepted the position. I think that the one who led (the rebel Shiv Sena) MLAs to Assam had expected more than the post of deputy CM. But in BJP, as per order, be it from Delhi or Nagpur, the CM post has been given to Eknath Shinde. The person who was CM and LoP [Leader of Opposition] has been asked to take oath as deputy CM. It’s shocking.”Two years later, the full impact of the BJP high command’s misjudgment would become clear. The Mahayuti alliance was decimated in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. In 2019, the BJP-Shiv Sena (united) alliance had won 41 seats. The BJP had won 23 out of the 25 seats it contested – a strike rate of 92%.In 2024, it was reduced to winning nine seats of the 28 it contested – a strike rate of just 30%. It was its worst performance ever.Following the dismal 2024 results, Fadnavis again offered to resign as deputy CM. He was again persuaded by the BJP high command to continue. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r Did the allies cost the BJP? The entry of Ajit Pawar’s NCP faction into the Mahayuti was just one reason for the debacle. A key reason why the Mahayuti did badly in the 2024 Lok Sabha poll was the poor – and late – selection of candidates. An analysis of the Maharashtra Lok Sabha election results makes it clear that the BJP gained nothing in terms of vote share from the Shinde Shiv Sena or the Ajit Pawar NCP. The BJP, in fact, helped those two allies gain vote share at its expense. The folly of the decision taken two years ago by the BJP high command – to make Shinde the chief minister and demote Fadnavis – resulted in the BJP losing 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Haunted by the spectre of a possible defeat in the Maharashtra assembly election due in October 2024, the BJP high command has made several course corrections. It has now placed two senior Union ministers (Ashwini Vaishnaw and Bhupendra Yadav) in charge of Maharashtra. It also put on hold the Rs. 80,000-crore, 302-km highway project connecting Nagpur to Goa. The project is opposed by farmers whose land would need to be acquired for the highway.Road to Delhi through LucknowHowever, Maharashtra isn’t the only state where the BJP is in danger of losing out to a resurgent opposition INDIA bloc.The bigger problem lies in Uttar Pradesh. State elections may be due later in April-May 2027, but the Congress-Samajwadi Party (SP) alliance could pose a serious challenge to the two-term Yogi Adityanath government. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r Adityanath was noticeably silent for much of the 2024 Lok Sabha campaign. Many of his candidate choices were rejected. Like in Maharashtra, poor candidate selection played a key role in nearly halving the BJP tally in UP from 62 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 to 33 seats in 2024. The loss of 29 seats in UP and 14 seats in Maharashtra adds up to 43 seats. These wins would have helped BJP sail past a simple majority to 283 seats in the Lok Sabha had the two largest states in India, which together account for 128 Lok Sabha seats, been handled with greater strategic finesse. Was Adityanath deliberately sidelined? That seems unlikely. The two-day visit last week to UP by the sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Mohan Bhagwat, to meet him suggests the UP CM retains the Sangh’s confidence. Adityanath seems to have Modi’s ear as well. But the chemistry with others in the BJP high command is less clear. For the BJP, the results of Maharashtra and UP are a lesson in people management. Fadnavis was sacrificed to appease Marathas by appointing Shinde as the CM. The Shinde faction was given far too many seats (15) to contest in the Lok Sabha election. BJP’s own candidate selection was slow and poorly thought out. In UP, Adityanath may not have been sidelined but the double-engine narrative of Modi-Adityanath has quietened. The INDIA bloc is watching closely. In Maharashtra, the MVA was quicker off the blocks than the Mahayuti in candidate selection. In UP, the SP-Congress combination added Other Backward Castes and Dalits to its Muslim-Yadav vote bank. If the BJP does not learn the lessons of mishandling UP and Maharashtra in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, resulting in the undermining of two key leaders - Adityanath and Fadnavis - it could face a serious challenge in the two states’ assembly polls ahead of the critical 2029 Lok Sabha election.Lead illustration: Sandeep Adhwaryu