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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MUMBAI 000364 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV SOCI ECON IN
SUBJECT: MAHARASHTRA GOES TO THE POLLS 
 
REF: A. 2008 MUMBAI 234 
     ¶B. 2009 MUMBAI 170 
     ¶C. 2009 Mumbai 130 
 
MUMBAI 00000364  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  Maharashtra, India's second most populous 
and most industrialized state, will go to the polls on October 
13 to elect a new state legislature.  The incumbent 
Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) coalition government 
has ruled for the past ten years.  Voter satisfaction with this 
government is low because of severe power shortages, farmer 
suicides, crumbling urban infrastructure, and recent rapid price 
rises in staple food items.  However, the opposition alliance of 
Hindu nationalist parties, the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata 
Party (BJP), may find it difficult to dislodge the incumbents 
because of infighting within the BJP, and the challenge to Shiv 
Sena posed by the break-away party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena 
(MNS), led by Raj Thackeray.  Neither alliance may reach a 
simple majority, according to current available projections. 
Therefore, post-poll maneuvering to attract smaller groupings 
will play an important role in government formation.  As 
incumbents at the Center, the Congress-NCP alliance will likely 
have an advantage there.  End Summary. 
 
 
 
 
 
Elections Declared 
 
------------------- 
 
 
 
¶2.  (U) On August 31, the Indian Election Commission announced 
the election schedule for the state of Maharashtra, which will 
go to the polls on October 13, along with two other states, 
Arunachal Pradesh and Haryana.  (Note:  All of these states have 
Congress Party or Congress-led Coalition governments.  End 
Note.)   Maharashtra accounts for over 10 percent of the 
nation's population, and 13 percent of the nation's GDP. 
Maharashtra has over 75 million eligible voters, making it one 
of the biggest Indian states, second in population size after 
Uttar Pradesh.  The Maharashtra state parliament has 288 seats, 
of which 29 are reserved for scheduled castes (or Dalits) and 25 
for scheduled tribes. 
 
 
 
The Major Contenders 
 
-------------------- 
 
 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 
alliance (known as the "Democratic Front"-- DF) was first 
cobbled together after the September 1999 elections in order to 
reach a simple majority, though the Congress and the NCP had 
contested the election separately.  (Note: In June 1999, Union 
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar formed the NCP as a break-away 
from the Congress to protest the Congress Party's then 
projection of Sonia Gandhi as a prime ministerial candidate. 
However, the NCP joined the Congress in the 2004-2009 United 
Progressive Alliance government, and subsequently buried its 
objections to Sonia Gandhi.  End note.)  The two parties fought 
the 2004 and 2009 state and national elections as an alliance, 
but contested district and lower level elections separately.  In 
the May 2009 national elections, the DF bagged 25 out of the 48 
seats to the national Parliament, with a resurgent Congress 
winning 17, the NCP 8. 
 
 
 
¶4. (SBU) State and national level Congress leaders have often 
urged the NCP to return to the Congress fold because of its 
common origins, shared commitment to secularism, and the absence 
of any real policy differences.  Recently, however, state level 
Congress leaders have suggested that the Congress should fight 
the state elections on its own, without combining with the NCP. 
Observers believe that these impish statements are part of the 
larger political maneuverings for negotiations over the 
allocation of constituencies, or seats, to candidates of each 
party.  (During the last state elections, Congress fought 164 
seats, and the NCP 124 out of the total 288 seats.)  While the 
NCP has struggled to find a public identity separate from the 
Congress, it is dominated by the Maratha community - a large, 
middle caste with prominent major landholders, especially in the 
 
MUMBAI 00000364  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
sugar growing areas of western Maharashtra. 
 
 
 
¶5.  (SBU) The Shiv Sena-BJP opposition alliance has a longer 
history.  The two parties have fought national, state, and 
sub-state level elections as an alliance since 1986, and ruled 
the state from 1995 to 1999.  The Sena began in 1966 as a party 
to safeguard the interests of local Marathi speakers, and party 
leaders found it convenient to ally with the BJP because of 
their shared platform of Hindutva (Political Hinduism).  The BJP 
is the weaker of the two parties in the state, has no major, 
notable state leaders, and has been riven by infighting at the 
state level for over a year (see ref B).  Should the Sena-BJP 
coalition come to power, Uddhav Thackeray, the son of Sena 
founder Balasaheb Thackeray, would most likely be appointed 
Chief Minister (an honor his father refused).  The two parties 
have almost completed their seat-sharing discussions, and will 
announce which seats each will contest shortly (likely to be 171 
for Sena and 117 seats for the BJP).  Unlike the NCP-Congress 
dynamic, where both parties are essentially fighting for the 
same voters, the Sena and BJP vote banks are somewhat distinct, 
which helps promote unity.  Sena voters are likely to be from 
middle or lower caste Marathi-speaking backgrounds, while the 
BJP draws in upper castes, as well as merchants and Gujarati and 
Hindi speakers. 
 
 
 
The Game Changers-- RPI and MNS 
 
------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶6.  (U) In addition to the two major alliances of the DF and 
Sena-BJP, there are two other significant forces in this 
election - a Third Front led by the Republican Party of India 
(RPI), a Dalit-based party, and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena 
(MNS).  The RPI was founded by Dr.B.R. Ambedkar in 1951, but it 
splintered soon after his death in 1956 into almost a dozen 
factions representing different individual leaders, diffusing 
its impact.  The RPI's various factions are mostly supported by 
the Mahars, a relatively well-educated and politically aware 
Dalit caste that, according to some estimates, accounts for nine 
percent of Maharashtra voters.  In last several state and 
national elections, the Congress and NCP allotted a few seats to 
various RPI faction leaders in return for Mahar support for 
Congress-NCP elsewhere in the state.  However, in August, 
various leftist parties and seven fragments of the RPI combined 
to form a "Third Front."  They pledged to contest all 288 seats, 
joining neither the DF nor the Sena-BJP combines.  This 
consolidation of the Dalit vote, which historically was 
transferred to the Congress, could cost the Congress-NCP 
alliance many votes, and a few closely contested seats where 
Mahars are concentrated, especially in Mumbai, Marathwada 
(South-Central Maharashtra), and Vidarbha (Eastern Maharashtra). 
 
 
 
¶7.  (SBU) In March 2006, Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray's 
nephew Raj Thackeray left the Sena and formed the break-away 
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which won several seats in 
three city government elections in February 2007.  The MNS has 
focused on attracting urban, Marathi-speaking voters and has 
used rough tactics and divisive issues to make a name for itself 
quickly.  Raj Thackeray has a knack for staying in the news by 
making controversial, inflammatory statements targeting migrants 
from northern India - primarily from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar - 
for burdening the civic infrastructure and taking away local 
jobs.  As a result, in major Maharashtra cities, the nativist, 
anti-migrant, son-of-the-soil, Marathi-speaking voter turned 
away from the Sena and towards MNS.  The poor and middle class 
urban Marathi speakers, who believe they are being pushed out by 
migrants from the North, perceive Raj as the true champion of 
their interests.  His followers' violent attacks against 
migrants in 2008 have largely gone unpunished; Congress leaders 
privately admit that they have gone easy on Raj and the MNS 
because he's divided Sena voters.  In the May 2009 national 
elections, the MNS polled four percent of the total votes in the 
state and caused the defeat of Sena-BJP alliance candidates in 
seven national parliamentary seats in the urban centers of 
Mumbai, Nasik, and Pune.  The Times of India calculated that if 
the same voting pattern persists in October, Raj Thackeray will 
be a "king maker" in the state election.  Should the DF and 
Sena-BJP each garner about 130 seats each, Raj's 10 to 12 state 
 
MUMBAI 00000364  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
legislators (MLAs) would decide which alliance reaches the magic 
figure of 145, a simple majority in a house of 288. 
 
 
 
The Issues-- Monsoon Failure and Price Rise 
 
------------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶8.  (SBU) By all accounts, the DF's performance has been 
lackluster at best.  In their ten year tenure, no new power 
generation capacity has been brought online, and few 
infrastructure projects have made it beyond the drawing board. 
Several recent tenders have been cancelled over concerns about 
corruption and the lack of transparency, and the state 
government was roundly criticized for its reaction to the 26/11 
terrorist attacks, which forced the resignation of its Chief and 
Deputy Chief Ministers.  The major issues are the deficient 
monsoon, and the significant price rise in politically sensitive 
commodities like legumes, cooking oil, and sugar, which 
constitute a significant portion of middle class and poor 
households' food expenditure.  More than 10,000 farmers have 
committed suicide in Maharashtra from 2006-2008, largely due to 
indebtedness. 
 
 
 
¶9. (SBU) BJP party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad was 
optimistic about his party's prospects the moment elections were 
announced on August 31.  "In Maharashtra, the polls are 
happening in the midst of people suffering from price rises, 
drought and lack of security.  The people of the state would 
give a befitting reply to the Congress-NCP combine by electing 
Shiv Sena-BJP alliance."  The Sena-BJP alliance is also hoping 
that they can capitalize on the state government's security 
failures, even though this issue did not resonate in the 
national election.  If the swine flu pandemic shows a 
significant resurgence, or there is a glaring failure in 
handling the issue, this would harm the ruling alliance's 
chances. 
 
 
 
¶10.  (SBU) According to Kumud Sanghvi-Chavre, political editor 
of the Navbharat Times, an internal survey of the Congress party 
conducted in the second week of August yielded the following 
seat predictions: 
 
 
 
Prediction 2009         Actual 2004 
 
Congress   85                     69 
 
Shiv Sena  75                     62 
 
BJP        50                     54 
 
NCP        40                     71 
 
Others     48                     32 
 
 
 
In this initial projections, the two larger alliances are close 
(Congress-NCP 125 versus Shiv Sena-BJP 115), and more than 16 
percent of the total seats (48 out of 288) are up for grabs by 
smaller players. 
 
 
 
Comment:  It will be a close finish 
 
----------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶11. (SBU) Maharashtra has one of the most intensely competitive 
political environments in India, and the state is in for an 
interesting, rambunctious, high-decibel campaign.  Margins will 
be slender in many races, and post-election maneuvering to 
attract strays to the two alliances will be intense.  Despite 
the DF's poor performance, the opposition is even more 
uninspiring; with the BJP divided, and the Sena losing momentum 
 
MUMBAI 00000364  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
to the MNS, it is possible that the DF will again return to 
power.  The DF also has a natural advantage in this contest, as 
it is also ruling at the center, but the BJP will leave no stone 
unturned because it sorely needs a win to turn attention away 
from its internal strife.  End Comment. 
TYLER