Purvanchalis may swing votes in Maharashtra

Purvanchali voters may decide the fate of as many as 75 candidates in fray in the Maharashtra Assembly polls scheduled to be held on 21 October.

According to experts, the dominance of Maratha politics in Maharashtra has weakened over time and this has created more space for the Purvanchalis in Maharashtra’s politics. Most of the Purvanchali voters are concentrated in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Thane, Kolhapur, Aurangabad, Kalyan and Akola, besides other regions.

Shalini Singh, an office bearer of Purvanchali Ekta Manch, told The Sunday Guardian: “There are almost 35 seats in the urban areas of Maharashtra where Purvanchali voters are dominant and they play a greater role in deciding the winners. Besides this, there are 40 Assembly constituencies located on the margins of Maharashtra’s suburb regions like Thane, Kalyan, Nagpur, Aurangabad and Pune where Purvanchali voters are present in a dominant situation.”

As per political pundits, once considered the backbone of the Congress, the Purvanchali voters have gained more takers in Maharashtra’s electoral politics. The voters of this segment are mainly migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

“The trend suggests that with the emergence of the Narendra Modi wave, most of the Purvanchali voters have shifted to the BJP and this shift resulted in a massive victory for the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and later in the Maharashtra Assembly polls held in 2014,” Singh said.

Pratima Mishra, another Purvanchali leader and member of the Purvanchali Ekta Manch, said: “In Maharashtra, the Purvanchali voters have been the main supporters of the Congress and leaders like Kripashankar Singh, Sanjay Nirupam, and Amarjeet Msihra have been securing support from this segment of voters.”

Kripashankar Singh and almost a dozen Purvanchali leaders have already switched to the BJP and they have been campaigning for the saffron party since the 2014 Assembly polls and in order to gain total allegiance of the Purvanchali voters, the BJP even gave the ministerial post to Vidya Thakur, a Purvanchali leader.

“Despite the rising number of Purvanchali voters, Marathas and Dalits are in a dominant situation in Maharashtra’s electoral politics. The reason behind this dominance is simply because the BJP and Shiv Sena are still hesitant to give more representation to Purvanchali leaders,” Mishra said.

Even in the forthcoming Assembly elections, only a few Purvacnahli leaders could secure tickets from the BJP and Shiv Sena. Comparatively, the Congress has fared better in terms of giving Assembly tickets to the Purvanchalis. What’s with the Madhya Pradesh Congress leaders—don’t they talk to each other directly instead of exchanging pot shots and other communications over social media? First it was Jyotiraditya Scindia taking pot shots at state Chief Minister Kamal Nath. Scindia, through his supporters has made it clear that he should be the state PCC chief and not Nath, who holds both posts. Now even Nath’s old buddy Digvijaya Singh has taken to offering advice on social media. Singh recently tweeted a picture of cows on the Bhopal-indore highway commenting that something needed to be done as these cows were in danger of being killed by the traffic. Without taking Nath’s name he asked— “where is the ‘Gau Mata Premi Gau Rakshak’ (the protector of cows)?” Nath immediately picked up the mantle and responded stating that “Digvijayaji you mentioned about the accident of cows sitting on the Bhopal-indore highway. I have immediately asked officials to make a plan about security of cows on main roads.” Given the equation between the two one is not quite sure whether the jousting is in jest or there is an underlying subtext here!