The BJP-led Mahayuti’s landslide win in Maharashtra and INDIA bloc’s comprehensive victory in Jharkhand have yet again shown that the elections in India are no more ideological battles; instead, they are contests won based on welfare populism and who gets their electoral and social alliances right. While welfare schemes do influence and swing poll outcomes, populist measures and welfare outreach succeed when an electoral bloc manages to stitch together a more representative social alliance. The ability of a party or bloc to go beyond its core support base and widen its reach is as important as unambiguous pollical messaging and, may be, even unapologetic polarisation.

What the latest round of elections have also proved is that predicting electoral outcomes is a perilous exercise and exit polls are as good as nothing. With credibility taking a hit because of their inconsistent track record and significant misses in recent times, trust in exit polls has become a thing of the past. If the general election in June and the Haryana poll last month showed that in complex political landscapes, it is not easy to predict election outcomes, Maharashtra has proved that exit polls are a complete unreliable indicator of election results; as suspect as the Indian Meteorological Department’s weather forecast during the monsoon season. That psephology can go so wrong is a matter of serious concern and self-analysis for the survey agencies that conduct these polls.

As polling ended in Maharashtra and Jharkhand on November 20, most exit polls pointed to an advantage for the Mahayuti alliance, while for Jharkhand it was a split verdict. Only Axis My India correctly predicted a landslide for the Mahayuti in Maharashtra and a clear victory for the JMM-led alliance in Jharkhand. But the sheer scale of Mahayuti’s monster win in Maharashtra and the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA) comprehensive defeat is not only incredibly inexplicable, it has stunned the political class, the public, the psephologists, the media, and the emphatic victors and gloomy losers. What was expected to be a close contest, with an edge for the incumbent over the MVA alliance of Congress, Sharad Pawar-led NCP and Udhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, turned out to be a one-way road. What led to such a landslide outcome? Cash, caste and polarisation?

A combination of factors have been credited for Mahayuti’s decisive win: the opening of the State’s treasury after the Mahayuti’s dismal performance in the Lok Sabha election in June to distribute welfare benefits to women, youth and farmers, the promise to increase cash handouts after the election, the diffusion of the potential impact of the Maratha agitation for reservation, the OBC consolidation against the Maratha vote and the twin narratives — ‘batenge toh katenge’ (divided we fall) and ‘ek hain toh safe hain’ (united we are safe). That the hasty rollout of welfare schemes months before the Assembly election — Ladki Bahin Yojna and Bhavantar Bharpayee Yojna — turned the tide against MVA is an undisputed fact. The polarising narrative worked in Mahayuti’s favour is also a credible explanation.

But what is incredibly surprising is the sheer scale of MVA’s decimation — collectively, the three constituents of the alliance have won only 46 seats, just five seats more than Ajit Pawar-led NCP’s tally of 41 and 10 seats less than Shinde Sena’s tally of 57. Point to be noted here is that Ajit’s NCP was the weakest link in the three-party Mahayuti alliance and Shinde’s Sena was not expected to perform better than Thackeray’s Sena. That the MVA failed to convert the ‘too-close-to-tell-election’ in its favour because its constituents could not set a winning narrative is difficult to dispute. Complacency on the part of MVA after its impressive show in the general election five months ago and its confidence that things would pan out the same way in the Assembly election was one of the reasons for its debilitating defeat, given that its campaign was a photo image of its general election campaign.

Lack of coordination between alliance partners, persistent differences over seat-sharing, uncontrolled rebellion, one-upmanship within the alliance, lack of efforts to win a difficult fight against an opponent that is said to have used unprecedented money power to win the election, and smaller parties and too many independents cutting into the MVA’s votes are some of the other reasons for the Opposition’s stunning defeat. Moreover, the RSS’s super active role in drumming up support for the Mahayuti played a crucial role in ensuring victory for the ruling alliance that rode high on a winning narrative of welfare populism, emotive sloganeering, and unapologetic polarisation. The arithmetic of the Mahayuti’s victory is also an illustration of its ability to course-correct quickly after an underwhelming performance in the general election five months ago and pull out all stops to retain power, countering the dissatisfaction it was facing: farmer distress, high unemployment and rising prices.

But the Mahayuti’s massive victory also raises several questions. It is being said by several political analysts that the alliance’s huge victory is because of the women’s vote. Around 2.34 crore women between 21 to 65 years of age are estimated to have benefited from the government’s cash transfer of Rs 1,500 per month over five months. The Congress had promised to double the amount in the Ladki Bahin scheme, but failed to get votes. Hailing the women’s vote for short-term hand-outs instead of long-term solution to their livelihood issues and economic anxieties as a match-winner may be a simplistic over-estimation, given that the adequacy and efficacy of the welfare scheme was questioned by women themselves. Moreover, what is problematic is that the celebrated ‘game-changer’ is not empowerment of women but enticement for votes and reinforcement of women’s image as only beneficiary citizens.

Leaving aside the Opposition’s allegations of a ‘managed verdict’ and several reports of mismatch between votes polled and EVM votes counted, what is surprising about Mahayuti’s wave-like victory is the failure of political experts and media pundits to see such massive pro-incumbency sentiment on the ground. It is highly unlikely that such overwhelming support for an alliance can go unnoticed. It goes without saying that the BJP-led Mahayuti won because the Opposition, stuck in the windfall moment of the general election, lacked the effort, determination, organisational support and a winning story to put up a genuine fight. There are several factors, including the full play of the communal card by the BJP, that explain the Mahayuti’s win in Maharashtra. But they do not seem to explain the sheer scale of its conquest.

The writer is a senior independent Mumbai-based journalist. He tweets at @ali_chougule