Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024 | Once a Cong citadel, coastal belt is now a battleground for rival Senas

Mumbai: Maharashtra’s coastal belt, stretching from Mumbai to the southernmost district of Sindhudurg, was once a Congress citadel, but the party lost ground to the undivided Shiv Sena over the years.

The coastal Konkan belt's economy was known to be dependent on money orders sent from Mumbai, where most of its residents migrated for work and business after Maharashtra achieved statehood in 1960. But the situation is no longer the same.

The region accounts for 75 of the total 288 state assembly seats, including 36 in Mumbai, and is expected to play a key role in deciding which coalition – ruling Mahayuti or opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) – governs Maharashtra after the November 20 polls.

Former CM and BJP Lok Sabha MP from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Narayan Rane, who hails from the picturesque region, told PTI that Konkan has now become self-sufficient, thriving on exports of fish, mangoes and cashews.

"Youths are embracing entrepreneurship. Infrastructure has also expanded with enhanced air and rail connectivity. There is sufficient electricity and water. The region has seen tremendous economic transformation,” said Rane, who won as Shiv Sena MLA from Malwan in Sindhudurg for the first time in 1990.

“I want to develop Ratnagiri as a tourism district, similar to Sindhudurg,” said the 72-year-old politician credited with establishing and expanding the undivided Shiv Sena before quitting the party.

State minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who was the lone Shiv Sena MLA to get elected on "mashal" (flaming torch) symbol from Mumbai (Mazgaon seat) in 1985, said the political realignments of the last five years would have a greater impact on urban areas than on rural ones.

Bhujbal, now with the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, pointed out that the undivided Shiv Sena and the Congress were once bitter rivals in the region.

But after the 2022 split in the Shiv Sena, Thane district, part of the Konkan division and political turf of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, will see a clash between the rival factions, he opined.

"I feel more than 30 Independents will be elected (all over Maharashtra) and they will hold the key to the next government formation," Bhujbal maintained.

Journalist Vaibhav Purandare, author of the book ‘Bal Thackeray and the Rise of the Shiv Sena’, explained that the regional saffron party, founded in 1966, grew in Mumbai and Konkan at the expense of Communists and Socialists, who once had significant influence in the region.

"The Shiv Sena took on Communists with the support of the Congress. Once Communists were decimated, mill workers of Mumbai, earlier aligned with Communists, shifted their loyalty to the Shiv Sena. These mill workers from Konkan came to Mumbai to work so their families in Konkan also supported the Sena," said Purandare.

In the mid-1980s, the Shiv Sena, which started out as a son-of-the-soil party, adopted Hindutva and became a key rival of the Congress which was guided by "secularism".

By the 1980s, Shiv Sena had made major gains in Mumbai, and by 1990, it formed an alliance with the BJP on the common platform of Hindutva. In 1995, the Shiv Sena-BJP formed a government.

This partnership reshaped the politics of the region, where the Shiv Sena continued to grow at the expense of Congress.

Stalwarts like Hashu Advani, Ram Naik, and Ram Kapse played pivotal roles in the BJP’s success. Shiv Sena leaders like Chhagan Bhujbal, Leeladhar Dake, and Pramod Navalkar helped the party grow during the 1980s.

In 2014, riding on the “Modi wave”, the BJP made inroads into Mumbai and its surrounding regions.

Data shows the Congress's slide in Konkan began in 1978. The Shiv Sena expanded itself at the cost of Communists and other smaller parties opposed to the Congress to emerge as a rival to the Grand Old Party.

In 1962, the coastal belt had 57 assembly seats, a number which has now gone up to 75.

From 1962 to 1978, the Congress held sway in Mumbai and other parts of Konkan, while non-Congress space was occupied by the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), Praja Socialist Party, RPI and Socialist Party of India.

Literary stalwart Acharya Pralhad Keshav Atre was elected from Dadar in Mumbai as an independent. In 1972, Pramod Navalkar of the Shiv Sena won from Girgaum in Mumbai with Congress support, while Mrinal Gore was elected on a Socialist Party of India ticket from Malad in the metropolis.

The Bharatiya Jana Sangh (predecessor of BJP) won an assembly seat for the first time in Mumbai in 1967. In the same year, trade union leader Datta Samant won on an RPI ticket and again in 1980 as an Independent.

The Congress’s decline started in the 1978 assembly elections, the first since the Emergency was lifted, and it was wiped out in Mumbai.

However, in the subsequent years, the Congress recovered some lost ground in the region.

The NCP came into existence in 1999 when veteran politician Sharad Pawar walked out of the Congress. The Congress got further weakened in the belt, especially in the Thane district.

Since 2014, the BJP has emerged as the dominant force in the coastal belt.

In 2019, political dynamics shifted yet again, with the once-rivals Shiv Sena and Congress becoming allies. This was followed by a split in the regional saffron party with the Shiv Sena (UBT) coming into existence.

All eyes are now on the Sena factions, led by CM Shinde, backed by the BJP, and his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray, and their performance in the coastal belt in the November 20 polls. Votes will be counted on November 23.