The Road to Success: BJP’s Maharashtra Story

20 mayors, 117 presidents of municipal councils, around 4,000 corporators across municipal corporations and municipalities and hundreds of Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti members…. This summarizes BJP’s success in Maharashtra’s local self-government elections in 2026. The new generation would hardly believe that, until the 1990s, BJP in this very state had only a handful of MPs, MLAs, mayors and corporators. Today’s success in Maharashtra is the result of the immense hard work put in by many generations of party workers.

BJP has become the number one party in the state entirely because of their hard work and sacrifices. BJP is different from other political parties. The idea of ‘Nation First, Party Next and Self Last’ forms the very soul of the party. Inspired by these thoughts, more than 11 crore people across the country have become members of BJP.

Apart from this, crores of people loyal to BJP’s ideology are directly or indirectly holding the party’s flag high. Five years ago, the Communist Party in China was the largest party in the world. That party had 7.5 crore members. Today, with more than 11 crore members, Bharatiya Janata Party is the largest political party in the world. BJP’s flag is flying high in villages, small settlements and even the most remote areas of the country.

In its early years, the party was often ridiculed as ‘Shethjee, bhatjincha paksh,’ meaning a party of traders and Brahmins. In Maharashtra, especially in Western Maharashtra, a Jana Sangh worker would get questioned and even slapped just for greeting someone with a ‘Namaskar’.

Despite facing insults and disrespect, party workers continued to struggle and devoted their lives to the party’s expansion. The fight against power, wealth and the established forces was not easy at all. But as democracy matured, education spread, dalits, adivasis and other backward classes became politically aware. They started understanding political parties and politics and even people from small villages started looking for options in politics. People fed up with Congress chose BJP as an alternative. Several BJP party workers and leaders from the Bahujan community exposed those who intentionally spread the misconception that this was a party of ‘Bhat-Bamans’.

The perception was created that BJP was finished after its defeat in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections. However, BJP critically analyzed that defeat, reflected on it and started strengthening the party organization once again with renewed vigour. In 1984, all top leaders, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, were defeated. Only two members, both unknown to the entire country, were elected. That was the most difficult period in the party’s history.

The situation in Maharashtra was even more difficult. Maharashtra was truly a Congress stronghold at that time. Only five Jana Sangh members were elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in 1972. Janata Party could win only 99 seats in 1978, of which approximately 30 members were associated with the former Jana Sangh. 34 MLAs from Janata Party joined BJP at the time of its formation in 1980. Assembly elections were held in Maharashtra in that same year. It was the very first election in the country contested under the name ‘Bharatiya Janata Party’ and with the new symbol, the ‘Lotus’! We won only 14 seats and 9.4% of the votes in that election.

At that time, we gave our hundred percent to fight for as many seats as possible. The intention was to create maximum awareness about the party’s name and symbol among the people. Even then, we were able to field only 145 candidates. Our situation remained the same for almost fifteen years. In 1990, we reached 42 seats for the first time, but the vote share still remained under 11%. During the same time, we formed an alliance with the Shiv Sena and remained in it for 30 long years. Even though we came to power once because of this alliance, it also imposed some natural limitations on the party’s growth. We used to get only 40% of the seats in the Legislative Assembly and even less—around 30%—in the local bodies because of this alliance. We contested a record 261 Assembly seats in Maharashtra on our own for the first time in 2014, 34 years after the party was founded. We became the single largest party in this election with a vote share of 28% and 122 seats. In 2019, we once again formed an alliance with Shiv Sena and therefore contested only 164 seats and won 105 of them. Even though we retained our number one position, the reality was that we lost both vote share and seats because of the alliance. However, during that same period, we got significant success in expanding our base in local self-government bodies. Today, we are the number one party at all levels, be it in the Legislative Assembly, where we have 134 MLAs or in local self-government bodies.

Of course, getting here wasn’t easy at all. Right from the topmost leader to the workers at the grassroots everyone has contributed to this success with their immense hard work. Today no one can imagine the efforts put by everyone into building the Jana Sangh during that period. Politics in Maharashtra was dominated by a single caste, family relations and nepotism. Gopinath Munde and Pramod Mahajan succeeded in putting an end to this. BJP brought various non-Maratha castes together under its wing with the guidance of visionary Vasantrao Bhagwat, who had a deep understanding of Maharashtra’s social dynamics. As a result, the sentiment ‘our leaders, our party’ was firmly established in the minds of the smaller castes. Numerous workers and hundreds of leaders from the Dhangar, Vanjari, Mali, Sali, Koli, Kunbi, Aagri, Dalit and tribal communities joined the BJP. The guidance of selfless leaders like Vasantrao Bhagwat, the organizational skills of the hardworking and strategist Pramod Mahajan and the diligent, studious and courageous leadership of Gopinath Munde, the Bahujan face of the party, enabled BJP to reach the masses. As a result of this, the BJP alliance came to power in 1995 by defeating a powerful force like Sharad Pawar. It was a massive blow to the established forces. BJP never looked back after that. My heartfelt gratitude to all the known and unknown workers and office-bearers who contributed to this journey…

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