Viju Cherian
On Monday, February 18, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena announced that they would be fighting the upcoming general election and the assembly polls as an alliance. Though the two parties have been in an alliance for more than two decades now, differences have surfaced since 2014 — to the extent that during its January 2018 national executive the Shiv Sena declared that it would fight the 2019 polls on its own.
However, on Monday, both the parties put up a united front giving the impression that each of them emerged a winner from the patch-up. A closer look would suggest that it’s the Matoshree tiger that is roaring a bit louder.
Over the past four years the Sena has publically criticised the BJP government’s functioning both at the Centre and at the state. The Sena has criticised the Narendra Modi-led Centre on the Rafale deal, on the construction of the Ram mandir in Ayodhya, among other issues.
The latest in this vein was seen on Monday when the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana criticised the BJP, saying: “By appealing to people to vote for the BJP to seek revenge for the Pulwama attack is akin to taking political mileage out of the death of our soldiers.” Hours later, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, BJP President Amit Shah and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis held a joint press conference to announce the poll tie-up.
Reports of talks between the BJP and the Shiv Sena have been doing the rounds for a few weeks now, and during this time the Shiv Sena has gone ahead with its criticism of the BJP and its ways. The Shiv Sena even sent its representative to the Telugu Desam Party’s protest in Delhi against the BJP-led central government.
Despite all these provocations, the BJP has agreed to an alliance.
This appears to be a pull back by the BJP, especially for the party under Shah. Under Shah the national party has showed an aggressive dominance in all the states where it has a presence and has often done so at the cost of its allies or potential allies. So why this mellowing in Maharashtra?
If opinion polls on the upcoming elections are to be believed, the BJP will need the support of its allies to form a government at the Centre. In Maharashtra, which sends 48 MPs to the lower house of Parliament, the BJP cannot afford to get its electoral arithmetic wrong. This is where the Shiv Sena gains importance. The vote bank of both nationalist parties overlap in many seats and votes would split if they were to contest the polls separately. What further necessitates the alliance is that the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have reached an electoral understanding in Maharashtra.
Of the 48 seats in Maharashtra, the BJP will be contesting in 25 and the Shiv Sena in 23. In the 2014 polls, the BJP contested in 24 and won 23, while the Shiv Sena contested in 20 and won 18 seats. Going by the winning percentage, this time, the BJP should be contesting from 27-28 seats, while the Shiv Sena from 20-21 seats. To be noted here is the fight for the Palghar seat. The BJP won the seat in 2014 and if reports are to be believed, this time the Shiv Sena will be contesting from Palghar. Anticipating such a move, more than 50 BJP workers have quit.
While both the parties fought the assembly polls separately, this time they have reached a 50:50 seat sharing agreement. In 2014, the Shiv Sena contested 282 seats and won only 63; the BJP contested 260 and won 122. Given this it is surprising that the BJP has agreed to go on an equal footing with the Shiv Sena.
All these show that the Shiv Sena has come back into the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) stronger and the BJP has been more than accommodating. Perhaps the BJP-Shiv Sena combine is the latest and a unique example of coalition compulsions.
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