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joining it, has not been withdrawn and that has impacted the Sena in a strange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
