The historic victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra has surprised everyone. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is among the most discussed campaigners who did 11 rallies and popularised slogans including, ‘Batenge to katenge. Ek rahenge to nek rahenge’ (Will be slaughtered if divided, unity will keep us safe and worthy). He campaigned for 17 candidates out of which 15 emerged victorious. The saffron party lost the Akola West assembly constituency by a mere 1283 votes. He also campaigned for 18 seats in Jharkhand and the party won 8 out of them. Moreover, the opposition parties managed to secure multiple seats by barely a few thousand votes in the state.
Aside from this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rapid rallies and slogans such as ‘Ek hein to safe hein’ (If we are united, we will be safe), programs like ‘Ladki behna yojana,’ the Mahayuti government’s developmental initiatives and the opposition’s Muslim appeasement policies were the primary causes of its success. When these key aspects are set apart and the strategy used by political parties in the Maharashtra elections is examined, it is revealed that the opposition’s propagation of “vote jihad” and the atmosphere that was fostered against it was also a major contributing factor. Meanwhile, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) played a significant part in minimizing the impact of the clarion call.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) enjoyed great success in the most recent Lok Sabha election. 14 of the state’s 48 seats were captured by its candidates. The BJP had termed it vote jihad and charged that members of a particular community (Muslim) had voted unitedly to defeat these 14 Hindu candidates in the polls. Devendra Fadnavis stated that some individuals believe that by organizing, they can overthrow Hindutva, in October. “Vote jihad vs Dharmayuddha (holy war)” became a catchphrase in the state afterwards.
The BJP’s concern about vote jihad was, in fact, not without merit. During the polls, many incidents surfaced to verify its authenticity. Rs 90 crore rupees were deposited in the accounts of 12 boys in Malegaon which were opened fraudulently. The party charged that the money was intended to be used for vote jihad. The investigation disclosed that Siraj Ahmed, a Muslim businessman from Maharashtra, sent the funds and further irregularities of Rs 125 crore were found when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided his place later.
Large sums of money were utilized for vote jihad, according to BJP leaders. Additionally, voter cards were created for Muslims from Bangladesh and the Rohingya community who were illegally residing in Maharashtra, urging them to vote against the Mahayuti. Prior to the assembly election, over 180 NGOs (Non-governmental organizations) were mobilizing Muslim votes against the party. 9 lakh Muslim voters were added in Mumbai alone owing to these groups.
Their representatives visited the Muslim community, informed them and then utilized them to boost voter turnout. The past several months have seen an abundance of campaigns by Islamic organizations to engage the Muslim population. They arranged community programs, information sessions and hundreds of meetings during this period. A recent Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) report unveiled that illegal immigrants were being settled in slum areas and voter cards were being provided to them for political purposes.
According to the survey, Mumbai witnessed a sharp rise in the number of undocumented Muslim immigrants. The percentage of Hindus in Mumbai fell from 88% in 1961 to 66% in 2011. The percentage of Muslims rose from 8% to 21% throughout this time. It is predicted that by 2051, the Muslim population could grow by roughly 30% and the Hindu population will drop to fewer than 54% if this trend continues. Vote jihad is a well-planned plot that has been employed to shift the demographics. The same has been transpiring in almost every part of the country.
Fatwas were issued before the assembly election, similar to that in the case of the Lok Sabha. Numerous Muslim groups urged people to support the MVA, which is headed by the Congress party. Meetings were planned at different locations to disseminate this fatwa to every Muslim home. Rallies were taken out. NGOs were involved. Maulana Khalilur Rahman Sajjad Nomani, a spokesman for the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, even went so far as to suggest that “those who support the BJP should be banned from the community.”
Earlier, Maulana Sajjad Nomani declared that every Muslim who votes today should use his right in favour of his community, in a program. He also instilled fear in the minds of his community members and claimed that if PM Modi came to power, all the mausoleums and madrasas would be razed to the ground. Islamic flags were waved in the rally organized by Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) in Mumbai. Muslims cast a large number of votes in Muslim-majority districts of Maharashtra for all of these reasons, and the outcome was evident.
The opposition parties tried to play the same game in the assembly polls as they did in the general election. The All India Ulema Board backed the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance after the latter assured them of support. The board even released an official letter describing its 17 conditions in exchange for the favor including a grant of Rs 1000 for the Waqf Board, outlawing RSS and enacting stringent blasphemy laws against those who criticize Prophet Muhammad.
The other demands were to oppose and repeal the Waqf Amendment Bill, to make a law in the state assembly to remove encroachment from Waqf properties, 10% reservation for Muslims in the Maharashtra Board, priority to educated Muslims in police recruitment in the state, putting BJP leaders Nitesh Rane and Ramgiri Maharaj behind bars, releasing Maulvi Salman Azheri and providing Rs 15,000 per month to the Maulanas and Imams of the mosques in the state.
The MVA accepted the demands of the Ulema Board and hence began preparations for the strategy of vote jihad to counter the Mahayuti alliance. However, with the slogan ‘Bantenge to katenge’ the RSS started to implement its own strategy when the situation intensified and politics turned aggressive Small meetings were held to inform the public of all the efforts underway for vote jihad. The RSS workers on the ground effectively performed their duties. Atul Limaye, the co-general secretary and head of the RSS’s western province, served as the leader.
There was a prepared response to the divisive rhetoric used against Hindus by Muslim leaders and outfits. The election was turned into a love jihad vs religious battle. The things were framed in such a way that Hindus were made to believe that they would face a mountain of problems if the MVA came to power. The TISS report became a significant point of discussion. Grassroots volunteers warned that the influx of Bangladesh and Rohingya intruders in the country would spike if an MVA government is established. The people were informed through social media, articles in newspapers, statements of party leaders and debates in the media.
Atul Limaye founded research teams, research groups and think tanks for the long-term political projects that covered these issues. Demographic analysis of religious minorities and how it affects policy decisions were made part of the discourse. He neutralized issues like the Maratha movement and took the leaders of the Maratha community into confidence as well as reconnected Other Backward Class (OBC) voters with the party. He focused his attention on the Hindutva issue to achieve the objective. The more MVA leaders rejected CM Yogi’s ‘Batenge to katenge. Ek rahenge to nek rahenge’ slogan, the more successfully the RSS won over Hindus at the local level.
Even Fahad Ahmed, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate of Sharad Pawar faction and the husband of small-time Bollywood actress Swara Bhaskar, who poses as progressive, lost the poll as a result. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) was limited to a Muslim-dominated seat like Malegaon Central. Its Mufti Ismail won by just 162 votes. The party had fielded its candidates in 16 places. Only 13 Muslims were elected as MLAs this time around out of the 420 Muslim candidates who contested the polls. Many prominent faces were included among those who lost due to the BJP’s impeccable strategy.
Colleagues view Atul Limaye as a grassroots and goal-oriented leader. The 54-year-old member of Maharashtra’s Chitpavan Brahmin community has an engineering degree and worked as an engineer for a global corporation. He became a full-time pracharak (person appointed to propagate a cause through personal contact, meetings, public lectures, etc.) of the RSS after quitting his job at a multinational company in early 2000. He took an important step towards strategy and social service. He is a native of Nasik and was Western Maharashtra’s Prant (area) Pracharak before swiftly ascending to the position of Kshetra (region) Pracharak. He commanded Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa. He is the Saha Sarkaryavah (joint general secretary) in the RSS.
Read the report in Hindi here.
