Balakot, nationalism dominated Maharashtra LS polls; will drought be poll plank for Assembly election?

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The Lok Sabha poll campaigning in Maharashtra, like almost everywhere else in India, focused mainly on national security issues.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his rally in Latur district, had called for first-time voters to dedicate their vote to the soldiers who carried out the Balakot airstrike.

PM Modi's statement was objected to by the Opposition, but he was given a clean chit by the Election Commission, and the message was delivered.

While Balakot dominated the narrative during the national election, one incident during the state BJP chief Raosaheb Danve's rally in drought-stricken Jalna highlighted the situation in Maharashtra. Those gathered for Danve's rally deserted the gathering, the moment it was announced that the civic body had started the water supply.

Reports suggest that Jalna is one of the cities adversely affected by the drought situation in Maharashtra. Of the 36 districts of Maharashtra, 26 have already been declared as drought affected, with over 12,000 villages depending on water tankers, according to reports.

However, the crisis was not a topic of discussion during the Lok Sabha poll campaigning. In fact, according to a CSDS-Lokniti survey reported in The Hindu, over 47 percent of the farmers, who said that the Center was responsible for the situation in the state, wanted to give PM Modi a second chance. This, experts have observed, is due to PM Modi and the BJP's focus on issues of national security.

The results showed that the strategy was a success, with the BJP-Shiv Sena combine winning all the eight seats in north Maharashtra, one of the regions where the drought has hit the hardest. The alliance also managed to win seven of the eight seats in Marathwada, which has been hit by an agrarian crisis.

Overall, the alliance won 41 out of Maharashtra's 48 Lok Sabha seats.

That was the general election. Within the next couple of months, Maharashtra will go to Assembly polls, where experts have stated that drought and agrarian crisis will be the talking points. Leaders in the state are aware of that, which is why even with the elections done and results out, politicians across parties in Maharashtra are still in campaign mode.

For instance, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar was in Marathwada only hours after the last phase of voting in Maharashtra ended on April 29. Pawar blamed the BJP government in the state for the condition of the farmers and promised them their dues. However, leaders in the state unit of the Congress— which fought the elections in alliance with the NCP in Maharashtra— admit that the Opposition needs to have a better plan to take the BJP government to task on the agrarian crisis.

"Before the election results were out, a meeting was held by the Congress committee and every leader was given the responsibility of touring the affected regions," Hemalata Patil, a Congress leader in Maharashtra, told Moneycontrol while speaking about Congress' strategy to tackle the issue.

"For instance, Balasaheb Thorat was responsible for North Maharashtra, Prithviraj Chavan for Western Maharashtra... these leaders went to the affected regions along with a team, and collated data as to what the main issues are and what their solutions could be. The report was presented to the Chief Minister as well as to the Governor," Patil added.

"This drought is not natural, it is manmade," Atul Londhe, the coordinator of Congress' Vidarbha committee told Moneycontrol, adding that the BJP cannot keep on winning by polarising the society. "We are not just raising these issues, which are related to the day-to-day life of people, but we have also conveyed these issues to the administration and the government," Londhe added that the BJP-Sena government is "for the election, of the election and by the election".

"The real task is to make these issues the talking point," a Congress secretary in the state told Moneycontrol, adding that the party has a "monumental task" ahead of it, especially since other parties like the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) are cutting into the Opposition space.

Meanwhile, BJP and Sena leaders in the state say that while the drought is an issue that needs to be tackled, the national elections favoured the alliance because the efforts put in by the state government towards tackling the crisis were effective. The result will be the same during the Assembly polls, they assert.