'BJP and RSS may have differences over minor issues but their hearts long for one common aim -- that of A Hindu Rashtra.'
'And this time to prove this point the RSS has prepared to help BJP win this election with all its might.'
Manish Kulkarni, a senior journalist from Nagpur who has been covering Vidarbha for 20 years, especially the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com that the RSS will ensure that the Bharatiya Janata Party wins at least 35 out of the 62 seats from the region which is home to leaders like the BJP's Nitin Gadkari, Devendra Fadnavis, Chandrashekhar Bawankule and the Congress' Nana Patole and Vijay Wadettiwar.
What are the main issues facing the people of Vidarbha in this election?
Farmers' suicides is not among the top issues, though farmers definitely are suffering in rural areas due to the agrarian crisis so typical of Vidarbha.
Unemployment and inflation are the main issues in general and then there are issues centred around construction, repair and maintenance of roads, availability of water for drinking and irrigation.
In the last ten years Nitin Gadkari (Union Cabinet minister) and Devendra Fadnavis (Maharashtra's deputy chief minister) resolved most of the pending and unattended issues related to development of this region.
However, issues and demands that accompany large-scale development and progress are still unfulfilled and so the BJP is using all its energies to complete these unfulfilled demands.
What issues are the BJP and Congress, which are locked in a close contest in Vidarbha, raising here?
There are not many local issues but the two main contenders for supremacy here are fighting over issues of rebellion, accusing each other of poaching top district and state leaders.
I am totally flabbergasted by the kind of election campaign run by these two parties in a region where 62 seats are at stake.
They seem to be oblivious of the problems faced by the people on the ground. How disconnected can two mainstream parties get from the real issues plaguing their constituents?
Maximum women seem to be very happy with getting Rs 1,500 very month (through the Mukhyamantri Ladki Bahin Yojana). Shockingly, women who own expensive mobile phones are also availing this benefit.
Due to this scheme, the anxiety, frustration and the political muckraking that was so visible in the last six to eight months has given way to a sense of upliftment because people now have money in their pockets.
Surprisingly and shockingly, instead of poor women benefitting from these funds these moneys have gone into the pockets of the middle and upper middle class.
To put it frankly, this government has bribed the voters and bought their votes. This has put all other major issues on the backburner.
The fact that farmers don't have enough water to irrigate their fields is a big issue here but the Congress is not clamouring about it at all.
The agitation for a separate state of Vidarbha extinguished almost eight years ago. In between, you will have some proponents of a separate Vidarbha croaking like frogs in rains but the movement has completely lost momentum today.
What is the BJP's game plan to win back Vidarbha, its stronghold since 2014 over which it lost its grip in the 2019 assembly and 2024 Lok Sabha election?
While the distribution of Rs 1,500 is helping them a great deal, most interesting, though, is the role the RSS is playing to help the BJP win back its stronghold. The RSS has jumped into the fray with full force.
A few days ago, as many as 200 RSS workers along with their families met near Dharampeth area in Nagpur city. A few days before this the RSS started a pilot project called Kutumb shakha (family get-together at its shakhas).
Traditionally, only the swayamsewaks (mostly men) would come to the shakhas for various functions and programmes; RSS office bearers would go to the homes of swayamsewaks for a get-together and meet-and-greet family functions; they would organise an informal chat in gardens or grounds to get support of people who don't belong to the RSS but this time they are using a different strategy.
The RSS functionaries -- swayamsewaks and their families -- organised a large scale get-together on the occasion of Kojagiri Pournima (October 16, 2024; in Maharashtra Hindus celebrate this festival at night by worshipping goddess Laxmi and seeking prosperity and wealth by fasting and performing rituals).
Nagpur has 12 constituencies out of which six are in the city and the rest are in rural areas and they celebrated Kojagiri Pourima across these constituencies. The preparations had already begun since Ganesh Utsav (first fortnight of September 2024).
The RSS's style is such that they will never approach people and ask them to vote for the BJP directly. They don't say so in as many words till the time they feel confident about winning the person's trust. But they create so much positive energy and atmosphere (around the BJP and its leaders) that you automatically get a message they are trying to convey.
At a meeting of local functionaries organised on November 11 by the RSS in Nagpur and different pockets of Vidarba where the RSS has its bastion, it was decided that RSS will go the whole hog and get 100 per cent BJP's traditional voters to come out and vote.
Let's take example of a young man who works in the IT sector and whose parents are retired. Generally, people who belong to this group are not ideologically inclined to one particular group.
The RSS workers try to increase contact with such families and encourage the young members to come and attend RSS shakhas at least once a week. If they offer excuses then these workers arrange meetings with this family by visiting their homes.
To get more and more people into the RSS fold these functionaries distribute digital content among people who are not associated with the RSS in any way, connect with them on social media, which since the past six months is being employed to garner support for promoting the RSS's thinking and socio-cultural projects.
On Twitter (X now), they organise group gatherings via Space; the use of Space to propagate the RSS's thinking has increased tremendously now.
While the RSS has been exploring benefits of social media for quite some time now it was only limited to itself. But now they ensure that all the youth, who have earned their trust, join their Space meetings.
There have been differences between the BJP and RSS about various programmes, issues and ideologies but this time the RSS functionaries have realised that such differences only end up helping Congress.
The BJP and RSS may have differences over minor, insignificant, issues but their hearts long for one common aim -- that of a Hindu Rashtra. And this time to prove this point the RSS has prepared to help the BJP win this election with all its might.
The BJP and RSS are coordinating extremely smartly to win back the BJP's lost glory in Vidarbha.
Why was the RSS missing in action in Vidarbha and Nagpur during the 2024 Lok Sabha election? The BJP could win only two Lok Sabha seats from Vidarbha.
While the BJP and RSS were always close to each other, there was a brief period when their differences became palpable. It was like people living in the same apartment but different flats.
In the RSS, every institution works individually but towards the same goal. Even their accounts are separate and no organisation affiliated to the RSS interferes in the working of the other. They have their own fund raising programmes and every organisation has its own budgetary expenses.
But every individual organisation works for a defined goal and is accountable to the top leadership of the RSS. Every chief representative is assigned responsibilities and reports directly to the top leadership.
But in 2024 there were minor ideological differences between the BJP and RSS; both had different issues and goals. The RSS was thinking through its heart while the BJP was using its brain.
The BJP's thought process revolved around forming a government at the Centre; the RSS was thinking long-term.
To use a stock market analogy, the RSS is like a long-term investor who is not bothered by short-term bouts of volatility, the BJP is into game of gaining political power.
The basic difference in how a long-term investor and short term investor weigh in gains and losses is actually the difference between the RSS and BJP.
What ticked in the Congress' and MVA's favour during the Lok Sabha election helping it win eight out of 10 seats with BJP winning only Nagpur and Akola?
Will these victories translate into more seats for the Congress in the assembly election compared to its performance in 2019 when it could win just 15 out of the 62 seats?
The Congress lost big in the 2014 (it won just 14 out of 62 seats in the first Narendra Modi wave) and 2019 election because it failed to garner substantial OBC support. After two successive defeats in Vidarbha, the Congress started an OBC outreach project since 2019.
OBCs and Muslims have been traditional Congress voters but the Congress for some short term gains opted to ignore the former voter base and the BJP was quick to fill in this gap.
The Congress did realise its folly and brought in Babanrao Taywade, the national chairperson of Rashtriya OBC Mahasangh (and former general secretary of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee).
An old Congress hand Taywade has played a significant role in uniting OBCs belonging to the influential Teli and Kunbi castes in Vidarbha. He was also successful in countering the BJP's ab ki baar, 400 paar narrative.
When the BJP's top central leadership was busy targeting Rahul Gandhi, Taywade worked hard on the ground in Vidarbha to consolidate the Congress's position among the influential OBC castes in Vidarbha.
The fact that post-COVID the BJP used all its strength to crush the anti-CAA, anti-farm law agitators helped the Congress build ground in Vidarbha that BJP was serious about changing India's Constitution. That harmed the BJP's chances to a great extent and the Congress took full advantage.
A lot of people who the BJP refers to as 'urban Naxals' also played a big role in setting the narrative that the BJP was anti-Constitution. Being a national party, this anti-BJP wave in Vidarbha during the Lok Sabha election helped the Congress perform exceedingly well.
Will the Congress benefit from the momentum it gained in this region during the Lok Sabha election?
That wave has all but evaporated. That narrative (the BJP is anti-Constitution) is no more an election issue in Vidarbha in November 2024. The assembly election issues revolve more about the state's development than anything related to the Constitution.
The biggest headache for the Congress's could be the agitation (led by Manoj Jarange Patil) for Maratha reservation. Jarange Patil stands exposed because of the way he has tried to give his agitation and demands a political colour.
If the Marathas (who call themselves 96 kulis is a miniscule number at less than 1 per cent) become vociferous in Vidarbha then it will be help consolidate the OBC vote in the BJP's favour.
Then there are Kunbi Patils (different from the OBC Kunbis), who consider themselves as Marathas, are directly connected to Jarange Patil and are in significant numbers in the cotton-producing areas of Vidarbha.
If these Marathas become politically active, then the influential OBC committee too would lend their support to the BJP. Otherwise, the OBC versus Marathas is not an important factor in this election.
Given this situation who has an upper hand between the Congress and BJP?
BJP definitely has an upper hand in this region. Factors like Rs 1,500 per month, RSS cadres active in full strength and the general cynicism that has crept among voters following what happened in Maharashtra post the 2019 election has led people to believe that voting one way for the BJP could help bring in a stable and clean government in Maharashtra.
Neither the two NCPs nor the two Shiv Senas hold any sway in this region keeping the ground open for a direct fight between the Congress and BJP.
One of the reasons why Vidarbha voters rejected the BJP in this year's Lok Sabha election was because they felt that the BJP's ranks, numbers and arrogance were swelling after many Opposition leaders joined the party between 2014 and 2024. Senior BJP leaders from the region were upset with the way how tickets were being distributed.
To stem the ebb, the BJP brought in Kailash Vijayvargiya (an influential BJP leader from Madhya Pradesh) in Nagpur. Around August 15, as per the BJP's internal survey they were confident of winning only two -- Eastern Nagpur and Nagpur South West (from where Devendra Fadnavis is contesting) -- out of six assembly seats in Nagpur.
In rural Nagpur too, the BJP's prospects were dismal.
Vijayvargiya, who has been staying put at Devgiri (Fadnavis's official government home in Nagpur) since the last six months, along with BJP cadres and RSS leaders addressed around 150 meetings in Vidarbha.
Vijayvargiya spoke with local reporters, social media influencers, connected with the smallest booth-level workers and rejuvenated the entire electoral ecosystem which has significantly changed the political landscape in the BJP's favour.
In Kamthi (from where state BJP President Chandrashekhar Bawankule is contesting), Bawankule was ignored in 2019; he is so popular here that it led to an anti-BJP wave since 2019.
This time there were murmurs that Bawankule won't get the ticket because he was already a member of the legislative council but realising that this could cost BJP Kamthi, and since the BJP wants to make a comeback here (in Vidarbha), it decided to field him from Kamthi because only Bawankule has the capacity to win from this seat.
Sudhakar Kohle who was upset because he was not given South Nagpur seat was accommodated in West Nagpur.
Whatever disaster management he could do, Vijayvargiya has done that; he even negotiated with Raj Thackeray and made many MNS candidates from rural Nagpur withdraw their nominations.
All these efforts are likely to bear fruit for the BJP not just in Nagpur but entire Vidarbha.
Out of the 62 seats who will win how many seats? The Congress and BJP are in a direct contest in as many as 32 of these seats.
As per my assessment and as the situation stands today, the BJP-led Mahayuti can win 35 (up from 29 that it won in 2019 but fewer than the 44 it won in the 2014 assembly election) seats from Vidarbha. The Maha Vikas Aghadi could win 27.
Out of 12 seats in Nagpur, where the RSS is headquartered, how many seats can the BJP win?
At least eight out of these 12 easily including Kamthi (Bawankule) and Nagpur South West (Devendra Fadnavis).
