Sometimes, politics is stranger than fiction. Take Maharashtra. The BJP leaves no occasion to insist that its allies in the ruling Mahyuti are just a drain on the world's largest party. 'They are good for nothing and needed to be kicked out," goes the unwritten campaign against Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's NCP. "We do not need crutches," declares Union Home Minister Amit Shah in a blunt message to the allies. It is also declared that the BJP will fight the next Assembly polls in 2029 on its own.
Still not quite there
These pep talks and declarations are fine to fire up the faithful. But, deep downs BJP is quite apprehensive over any decision to go it alone. If it were not so, the BJP would have declared that it would go solo in the civic polls due soon in the new year.
The world's largest party is not that comfortable in the difficult and rugged terrain of Maharashtra, as it knows that despite the emergence of Narendra Modi on the national scene way back in May 2014, the BJP has failed to get a majority on its own in the Assembly polls.
Its 130-odd seats in the 288-member Assembly is also due to the allies helping the party substantially in some areas, and the Ladki Bahin Yojana did the trick to tilt the scales.
If BJP’s allies exit, opposition will gain
If Shinde and Ajit Pawar get kicked out of the Mahayuti, the hapless opposition would gain strength as the discarded and discredited forces would join hands, directly and indirectly, with them.
It will be a guerilla war that the BJP would have to contend with in what experts believe is the 'most difficult' state of India, politically. Politics abhors a vacuum.
Therefore, it could turn the tussle into the BJP versus the rest. Sharad Pawar and his party might be a decimated lot, but the veteran has not lost his bite and strategy to bring the disparate opposition together in one way or another, under one pretext or another.
After the 2019 polls, it seemed to be unthinkable to bring the undivided Shiv Sena and the Congress together, but it was achieved almost with ease by Sharad Pawar, who was the architect of the Maha Vikas Aghadi.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis might be making tall claims about the progress made by the BJP in the recent decade and the development carried out by his government, but the fact is that if that was so, there would be no need to carry the ‘excess baggage’ of the allies anymore.
A lacklustre first year
The BJP-led government has celebrated its first anniversary, but it has hardly anything by way of an achievement. There has been one-upmanship galore among the BJP and its allies, with Fadnavis attempting to pull down the allies in various ways by seeking to lower their image in every possible way.
Reports that all files are routed through the CM meant that the Deputy CMs have no final say in anything. Some decisions taken by Shinde earlier as CM are also being reviewed.
Riding mainly on the Modi wave limits risk taking capacity
The problem with the BJP is that it has gained the upper hand in the politics of Maharashtra with the emergence of Narendra Modi at the national level and not through the toil and the strategy of any local leader. So, the world’s largest party remains a bit tentative and cannot afford to make drastic experiments. However, unlike Congress in its heyday, the BJP has been a bit brash with some of its allies.
A Modi wave boosted by posters of the top leader bowing in front of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj did the trick for the BJP in the state in the 2014 Assembly polls.
A look back at BJP’s ascent to pole position in Maharashtra
Fadnavis is no doubt the top BJP leader in the state, but he is neither Pramod Mahajan nor Gopinath Munde. The Chief Minister has virtually been handed power on a platter due to the blessings of the PM. It is no doubt that in the new scheme of things, Fadnavis is among the emerging national leaders of the ruling party.
Mahajan was the right-hand man of Atal Bihari Vajpayee when he was in power. The rise of Modi in the BJP occurred only in the post-Mahajan period.
Mahajan and Munde had for the first time brought the BJP to power in the state via the coalition route way back in 1995. It was the beginning of the end of the domineering Congress influence in the state.
If a section of political observers is to be believed, then the BJP would be cautious about next steps in Maharashtra notwithstanding the bravado of ‘going it alone’.
Another section, however, feels that if the Congress continues to slide, the BJP alone would be the rising star, given the fact that it is a national party.
(Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.)
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