Political Analysis I Shripad Sabnis
BJP has been doing politics on the basis of social engineering for a long time. However, after 2014, the focus shifted to the Maratha community. Therefore, BJP’s ‘Madhav’ formula was backward. BJP suffered this in 2024 elections.
Its visible results were seen in the recently held Lok Sabha elections. As a result, the BJP is now forced to return to the ‘Madhav’ formula to increase OBC votes in the state four months before the assembly elections.
It is worth noting that BJP won Pankaja Munde, Dr. The candidature of Parinay Phuke, Amit Borkhe, Yogesh Tilekar and Sadabhau Khot speaks volumes in this regard. Three of these candidates belong to the OBC community. So one candidate each is Dalit and Maratha.
The BJP is now forced to revert to the ‘Madhav’ formula to increase OBC votes in the state four months before the assembly elections.
BJP leader Pankaja Munde hails from the OBC Vanjari community. Mali, Dhangar and Wanjari are major communities in the OBC community. Yogesh Tilekar from Pune belongs to the gardener community. So, Dr. Parinay Phuke also hails from the Kunbi caste of OBC. So it is seen that once again BJP has focused its politics on OBC votes in Maharashtra.
Amit Borkhe and Sadabhau Khot are also candidates from Dalit and Maratha communities. Over 31 per cent are Marathas in the state, while OBCs are close to 40 per cent. But, they are divided into 356 sub-castes. BJP is currently planning a strategy to bring these two communities under its fold.
BJP leader Vasantrao Bhagwat with the cooperation of Gopinath Munde, Pramod Mahajan, Pandurang Fundkar, Mahadev Shivankar started efforts to bring the OBC community mainly Mali, Dhangar and Vanjari (Madhav) into their fold.
Gopinath Munde was the prominent face of OBCs in Maharashtra. But, his death in 2014 gave the party a big shock. Since the 2014 elections, the BJP leadership has roped in dozens of Maratha leaders to expand the party in the state.
The BJP leadership completely sidelined the OBC leaders and Devendra Fadnavis became the main face of the BJP. Besides making Eknath Shinde the Chief Minister, the Maratha community was given the status of Kunbi caste and the resentment among the OBCs increased. That is why BJP had to suffer huge losses in 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
BJP is once again trying to give importance to OBC castes so that this mistake is not repeated in the assembly elections. At the same time, a strategy has been devised to achieve balance by giving political importance to the Maratha and Dalit communities.
It should not be an exaggeration to say that the BJP has once again remembered the ‘Madhav’ formula which was set aside for nearly four decades!
Madhav Pattern and Today’s BJP…
Vasantrao Bhagwat had selected ten young activists from all over the state to spread the BJP throughout the state and to reach all sections of the society. All of them took inspiration from Bhagwat and decided to work full time for the party. These boys included Pramod Mahajan, Gopinath Munde, Vishwas Gangurde, Dharamchand Chordia, Prakash Javadekar, Bhausaheb Fundkar, Chintaman Vanaga, Arun Adsad. Along with this, Madhu Pawar, Madhav Bhandari, Ramesh Medhekar also benefited from Bhagwat’s guidance. All of them devoted full time to spread the party in the state. By holding on to the leaders of this Bahujan community and joining the leaders of the Brahmin community like Pramod Mahajan, the BJP gradually spread its empire in Maharashtra.
Gopinath Munde passed away accidentally after the 2014 assembly elections and many developments took place in the BJP. Devendra Fadnavis was made Chief Minister and the Madhav pattern of BJP came into Fadnavis’ hands. Even today under his leadership BJP is running according to the Madhav pattern. Fadnavis says that the party went out of power in the midst of political upheaval, but still the BJP will continue on the path shown by Munde-Mahajan.
(writer is senior political journalist)
