Ace investor and author Ruchir Sharma, who has been tracking Indian elections for the last two decades, on Wednesday predicted a close contest in Maharashtra but said the real loss will be for the two BJP allies - Ajit Pawar's NCP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena. He also said that except for Andhra Pradesh, the BJP allies are doing "very poorly" in the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar, Karnataka, and Maharashtra.
Sharma said that one of the big findings - in terms of his travel and the anecdotal evidence - was farmers' anger at the ban on onion exports, which took place for about 6 months or so. "The general sense I picked up was that the seat split in the state will be 50/50 but the real loss will take place in the two BJP allies (NCP and Shiv Sena)," he said while speaking at India Today Pop-Up Conclave in Mumbai. The investor said he found this trend after meeting with journalists and industrialists in Aurangabad, Nashik, and Solapur.
Predicting Maharashtra has become a tough task for pollsters after a split in two regional forces - NCP and Sena. Ground reports suggest that the NDA may suffer a significant loss in the western state, considering anger against the leaders - Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde - of breakaway factions of the NCP and Sena.
"With the exception of Andhra Pradesh, the BJP's allies in particular are doing very poorly in Bihar, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. The allies are the ones which seem to be in real trouble with the exception of Andra Pradesh where Chandra Babu Naidu is on the ascendant," said Sharma, Chairman of Rockefeller International.
The BJP has allied with Nitish Kumar's JDU in Bihar, HD Kumaraswamy's JDS in Karnataka, and Chandrababu Naidu's TDP in Andhra Pradesh. In Andhra, the BJP is contesting only on 6 of 25 seats, but any win for TDP will boost the NDA's tally. The BJP, according to reports, may suffer a setback in Karnataka for two reasons - infighting within the party and women voters favouring Congress due to its cash-transfer scheme.
The global investor also spoke on the economic decline of Maharashtra. He said Maharashtra, at one point in time, used to be the second richest state of this country. Today, he said, Maharashtra has fallen out of the top 10, and a lot of the decline has happened in the last 10 to 15 years. "When you travel in Maharashtra what you see is that outside of the Golden Triangle, Mumbai-Nashik-Pune, the average income in Maharashtra is lower than the national average income of India. So it's been a big decline of Maharashtra," he said.
Sharma said his team drove through places like Beed on this election trip and the "distress is visible". He said the quality of roads was very different in Maharashtra compared to Karnataka. "The previous state we had done an election trip for was Karnataka and the switch in fortunes is remarkable. No state in India has seen a rise in its per capita income like Karnataka has seen in the last 10 to 15 years. And no state has seen a decline as sharp as Maharashtra has seen in the last 10 to 15 years," he added.
Growing inequalities
Sharma said that the inequality has always been there. "But in the post-Covid India, the gap has widened. The good thing that the Modi government has been able to do is that it gave a lot of freebies - free rations and the delivery mechanism has improved a lot because they get so much money through direct transfers and the scope for leakage has gone down."
"But having said that, the gap has clearly gone up and there's a big urban-rural divide that has happened in India. So many of these trends which were there in India have been particularly accentuated in the post-Covid world. The wealth and income inequality in India that is there today is at pretty much record highs. For me, the big telltale sign is the billionaire wealth in this country."
In 2019, the BJP and the undivided Sena had cornered 41 of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. The BJP had won 23 of 25 it contested, while Sena bagged 18. This time, the saffron party is contesting 28 seats.
Also, the BJP is contesting on 25 of 28 seats in Karnataka, while JDS 3. In Bihar, the saffron party is fighting on 17 of 40 seats, while JDU on 16, Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party on 5. Jitan Ram Manjhi-led Hindustani Awam Morcha and Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Morcha are contesting on one seat each.