Maharashtra elections 2024: Shinde-led Mahayuti government perceived as high on corruption, not bad on performance

Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde, with Deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar during a press conference, in Mumbai. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

For the past two and a half years, Maharashtra has been ruled by the Mahayuti government, with Eknath Shinde as the Chief Minister. The State holds very high political value for the BJP’s national leadership. The pre-poll survey posed a few questions to assess voters’s perceptions of the performance of the incumbent government on various parameters. The majority of respondents seem to be neither fully satisfied nor fully dissatisfied with these parameters, while overall maintaining an approval rating for the government’s performance.

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Among all areas of performance, it is only in the condition of roads and bridges that a greater number of respondents acknowledged improvement over the past five years compared with those who did not notice any change. In all other areas, a greater number of respondents said that the condition either remained the same or worsened (Table 1). These areas ranged from law and order to women’s safety, as well as traffic situation, floods, and drinking water supply.

The combined percentage of respondents who felt that things had not improved or had worsened was far greater than those who believed improvements had been made. At the same time, the percentage of respondents who experienced worsening conditions was slightly less than those who experienced improvement.

Significantly, when asked whether the level of corruption had increased or decreased under the Shinde government compared with the Uddhav Thackeray government, only one in 10 (11%) respondents said corruption had decreased under the incumbent government. Two in five (42%) voters believed that corruption had increased under the Mahayuti government. This is a significant number, given that the Opposition has dubbed the Shinde government as the Khoke Sarkar (a government formed with the influence of money boxes).

A little over one-third (37%) responded that there has been no change in the level of corruption under the current government (Table 2).

The BJP’s conventional plank in the State has always been the projection of its clean image in contrast to the corrupt images of leaders from Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party. This plank appears to have been dented, as per this survey.

When we view these responses in the context of the popularity ratings of Mr. Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis, the former’s acceptability is considerably higher (see leadership article). Therefore, it cannot be concluded that respondents attribute the increased corruption levels primarily to the Chief Minister or his party colleagues. Furthermore, in response to another question discussed in a different article, the Mahayuti was seen as the best suited to tackle corruption.

In fact, despite the perceived significant increase in corruption and the lack of improvement across all the given parameters, the overall level of dissatisfaction with the performance of the incumbent government is not alarming for the ruling coalition. While six in 10 respondents were satisfied with the government’s performance, one-third were dissatisfied (Table 3).

The net satisfaction stood at 30 percentage points. However, four in 10 were only somewhat satisfied. This suggests that there is ample room for the political parties to campaign on the performance or the non-performance of the incumbent government.