Plain-speak: Maharashtra

The Congress in Maharashtra is as weakened as it is across the other parts of the country, and is dispirited despite the routine of playing the role of Opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party since the ascendance of Narendra Modi. The Congress’ earlier partner, Nationalist Congress Party is no better, suspect of nursing the ability to step in should the Shiv Sena ever decide to walk out of the Devendra Fadnavis government.

The offer of outside support NCP made when BJP could not form the government with a majority because the Shiv Sena dithered for weeks in joining it, has not been withdrawn and that has impacted the Sena in a strange manner. It is fearful that NCP could take its place at the drop of a hat, and with reduced attention on its brand of Hindutva, diminish it. That is a sad situation because Sena had fared rather well in what was essentially a four-cornered contest.

It is hard to describe the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena’s present alliance in Maharashtra as anything other than two divorcees back in bed, but not remarried. The bond is the past, the need to be in power, and the bitterness stemming from the break up in 2014 after a long marriage in which the BJP was the junior partner – that is, as in a conventional Hindu marriage, the better half, demure and compliant to the other spouse.

Now Maharashtra is the unbecoming scene of a worsening bitter and unseemly fight between two bedfellows, though they are not strangers to each other. They had been allies till the State Assembly elections in 2014 and fought each other with venom in each word uttered during the hustings. It had appeared they were asunder for ever till the Sena took on what should have been BJP’s manners – docile, compliant partner, but isn’t.

But no, the Sena has decided to have the egg and the omelette, and at every opportunity thereafter, hurled invectives though it inveigled itself into the government in December 2014 which DevendraFadnavis had formed in October 2014. It goes beyond nagging. It is, as far as the government is concerned, an in-house Opposition, leaving the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party free of their responsibilities on the Opposition benches. The latter are pale shadows of the idea of an Opposition.

The past week has brought out the worst in the BJP and the Shiv Sena, with the former retaliating in as strong terms as the latter in running it down. Name calling was part of it, and the Sena which is also a partner in the Centre, thus constituting the NDA. Bitter posters were displayed on the social media and prime minister Narendra Modi not spared by the ally. It has gone beyond the normal intra-alliance jostling and elbowing.

It spilled on to the streets in EknathKhadse’s hometown, Jalgaon after his forced resignation, as if the Sena was a virtuous party, unblemished in its history.

Shiv Sena, instead of the shenanigans it is indulging in vis-à-vis the BJP is missing an opportunity to cut the NCP to size by being a reassuring than a quarrelsome partner of the BJP and seek investigations in all the alleged scandals in which NCP’s ministers were accused of being involved in during 1999 to 2014. ChhaganBhujbal, his nephew in confined without bail, and a son on the scanner is possibly an abridged version of the act. There are weak probes on a former deputy chief minister, AjitPawar, and the party’s former state unit chief and minister, Sunil Tatakare.

However, the Shiv Sena, now more keen on local civic bodies including the goose with the golden eggs which is Mumbai’s local self-government in the elections due in 2017, is daggers drawn wanting to deny BJP any quarter. That, of course, is understandable because BJP is inclined to oust it from that, by fighting against its post-poll ally in the state and the Centre. That has put NCP on a lower priority. The Sena may regret it sooner than later.

Mahesh Vijapurkar