Hyderabad:Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena finally announced on Monday that they will fight the Maharashtra assembly election together in alliance.
For the fear of large scale rebellion, the exact seat-sharing was not made public on Tuesday. But, according to sources, out of 288, BJP is likely to contest 146 and Shiv Sena 124 seats, leaving 18 for the other friendly parties.
So the picture is now clear. It is going to be a straight fight between the BJP-Sena alliance and Congress-NCP Front. Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena may make the fights multi-cornered in a few seats and may prove as spoilers or voter-eaters in some others. But that is all.
All options were open 56
Though everybody expected the same picture to emerge, there had been a lot of speculation that BJP and Shiv Sena will break away.
The reasons for this speculation were many. And most of them were provided by BJP itself.
Whenever asked in the past two months, the BJP leaders would say that the talks between the two sides are on, giving the impression that the question of an alliance was still open. In an election rally of Narendra Modi in Nashik on 19th September not a single mention of Shiv Sena was made. And above all, Amit Shah almost avoided meeting Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray during his recent Mumbai visit. The same Shah had gone to Matoshree, the residence of Thackerays in Bandra, ahead of Lok Sabha elections a few months back. It was the time when BJP was little worried about the way Rahul Gandhi, with his “Chowkidar Chor Hai campaign”, was attracting huge crowds It was before the Balakot air-strike.
But all this is now past. BJP and Shiv Sena continue to be friends, at least for the moment.
Shaky beginning
Historically, BJP had remained very weak in Maharashtra for a very long time. Considering the fact that RSS, the ideological institute from which Jan Sangh and later BJP emerged, was formed by Maharashtrian Brahmins in Nagpur, it seems a little strange that the BJP remained a minor player for quite a long time in the state. Balasaheb Thackeray used to pooh RSS and BJP as the organisations of worthless soldiers.
Post-1985 BJP changed the gear and adopted aggressive Hindutva as its new plank. Once Thackeray realised that it could help Sena in reaching large cosmopolitan segments, beyond its Marathi support base the adversity turned into a bonhomie. Finally, in 1989 assembly elections these parties came together for the first time. Knowing that it lacks any support or organisational base in the rural areas, BJP thought it prudent to piggyback on Shiv Sena's mass appeal and organisational structure to increase its spread in the state.
The understanding between the two parties was very clear. BJP will not have much of ambitions in Maharashtra and Shiv Sena will be only in a supportive role to BJP at the central level. “In Maharashtra BJP is a younger and Shiv Sena is an elder brother while in India it is vice versa,” was the most popular refrain during that period.
In those initial years, BJP used to contest 117 while Shiv Sena 171 seats in Maharashtra assembly elections. Slowly, as BJP gained the strength the equation got changed.
BJP- the elder brother
And, today, BJP has become elder brother both at the center as well as in the state.
In 2014 both parties fought separately and in one stroke BJP created a history. Sena won 63, while BJP won almost twice, ie. 123 seats then.
In the past five years, BJP steadily consolidated its base where Shiv Sena and Congress/NCP were strong. The biggest shock which changed the political perceptions completely came in the Corporation elections in 2017 in Mumbai. As is known, Shiv Sena's all the strength and money comes from Mumbai. But BJP fought against it and almost clinched the power. Scores were – Total seats 227, Shiv Sena- 84, BJP – 82. This proved like a body blow to Sena.
In almost all the major cities, barring Thane, (like Pune, Aurangabad, Nashik, Jalgaon, Dhule, Nagpur, etc) BJP has virtually crushed all the opposition parties. Also, it has captured about 40 per cent seats single-handedly in municipal councils and Nagar Panchayats.
In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Shiv Sena survived only because it had an alliance with the BJP, which won 23 out of 48 seats. It is an open secret that Shiv Sena owes its 18 seats mostly to Modi.
No wonder then that most of the BJP activists and leaders believe, today, that BJP should break its ties with Shiv Sena and go alone. They feel that statistics and public mood is on their side. But still, BJP's top leadership does not seem to buy this logic at the moment.
Congress not dying yet
One could see the following reasons for this -
For one - It is widely believed that Devendra Fadnavis is the strong advocate of continuing an alliance with Sena, with having long term plan in mind.
Another is the state's large cooperative sector favouring Congress. As is well known, Maharashtra is the hub of cooperative institutions. May it be sugar factories, lift irrigation schemes or banks, such cooperative structures have deep roots in the society. To put things in perspective there are more than 5 crore members in about 2 lac cooperatives in the state, with running capital of about 36 thousand crores. Even today a large number of cooperatives are controlled by Congress and NCP leaders. In fact, power emanating from these cooperatives and huge mass base that they offer make most of their leaders quite independent. They are less dependent on their state or central leadership or party for winning the assembly elections in their area. And, it is quite discomforting for the BJP that most of these leaders and their supporter masses are still driven by the Congress ideology.
BJP sees it not just an immediate, but a long term threat. It feels that this large mass base could pave way for the Congress and NCP's revival. If not now, sometime in future. And as is evident everywhere else, the new BJP under the Modi-Shah is quite aggressive in making its political opponents vacate all the space, howsoever small or big that may be.
In Maharashtra, NCP has a stronger mass base than in Congress. It explains why BJP is targetting Sharad Pawar and other NCP leaders so vehemently these days. In past one year, BJP has invited about 30 major leaders from both the parties and have now given assembly tickets to most of them.
But Congress and NCP do not seem to give up easily. They have survived the onslaught and readying themselves for the fight. It is going to be more or less losing battle for them. But it seems that BJP does not wish to take any chances and also perhaps does not wish to fight too many enemies at the same time. That explains why it is taking a lenient view in spite of Shiv Sena's adversarial attitude in the last five years. Looks like Fadnavis and others believe that antagonising Shiv Sena would cut into votes massively and would benefit the Congress. BJP can not afford to happen it now. All said and done, Shiv Sena has a lot of strong pockets in the state. It is dominant in Mumbai and adjoining coastal districts, which together have about 80 seats. Plus it is quite a major force in at least five districts out of 8 in Marathwada. In the ultimate analysis, all this could change the equations. Clearly, BJP is wary of it.
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