Maharashtra poll: Payouts for women, rural distress and other factors at play in close contest
The Mahayuti might benefit from its cash payouts and caste arithmetic but rural distress and rebels could be the ruling bloc’s undoing.
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In the parliamentary elections earlier this year, Maharashtra voted decisively for the Maha Vikas Aghadi, a coalition consisting of the Congress, the Shiv Sena faction led by Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar’s group of the Nationalist Congress Party.
It was the first electoral test since the Bharatiya Janata Party engineered splits in the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party. Five months on, the Mahayuti, a compact between the BJP, the Shiv Sena faction headed by Eknath Shinde and a group of the Nationalist Congress Party headed by Ajit Pawar, is hoping to regain lost ground.
Here are the five key factors at play in the assembly elections in the state.
Rural distress: Soybean and cotton
In August, the price for soybean plummeted to a 10-year low and has barely recovered since. Maharashtra is the second-largest producer of soybean in India. The oilseed is selling at Rs 1,000 below the Minimum Support Price of Rs 4,892 per quintal. The Narenda Modi government’s decision to increase import duties on edible oils to support domestic oilseed farmers, a reversal of its earlier policy, has not had the desired effect.
Soybean is primarily grown in Maharashtra’s Marathwada and Vidarbha regions. Marathwada accounts for 46 seats in the 288-member state assembly, while Vidharbha has...
