The Maharashtra seat-sharing conundrum is getting worse by the day and now Congress has started throwing its hat in the slugfest. According to an IANS report, Congress wants Shiv Sena to openly walk out of the alliance with BJP and then seek open support from the opposition. Though the Congress party managed to win paltry 44 seats in the elections, a meager increase of two seats from its last elections tally, it has started calling the shots even though the Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena alliance seems like a distant dream right now.
Hussain Dalwai, Congress Rajya Sabha member, told IANS, “Any decision of supporting the Sena will depend when the Uddhav Thackrey-led party walks out of the alliance.” NCP supremo Pawar also had a series of meetings with Congress leaders, including former Chief Ministers Ashok Chavan and Prithviraj Chavan, and they discussed the ongoing BJP-Shiv Sena power tussle. However, both parties have not revealed their cards except many second-rung leaders advocating a Sena-headed government supported by the NCP-Congress.
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The turbulent Shiv Sena and BJP are embroiled in a tussle over the power-sharing formula for the new Maharashtra government. The Uddhav Thackeray-led party wants rotational chief ministership and half of the portfolios, a proposal that has been fairly rejected by the senior partner BJP.
Earlier, in a clear attempt to pressurise the BJP to give in to its demands, Shiv Sena’s Diwakar Raote met the Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari separately from Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis. As a part of its attempt to somehow get the BJP into agreeing with the 50:50 formula, Shiv Sena MP and party spokesperson, Sanjay Raut went on to draw a comparison between the political situation in Haryana with that in Maharashtra. Raut said that government formation got delayed in Maharashtra because “there is no Dushyant [Chautala] here whose father is in jail.” With this he tried to suggest that there is a difference in the political situation of Haryana and Maharashtra where elections took place at the same time. He added, “Here [Maharashtra] it’s us [Shiv Sena] who do politics of dharma and satya, Sharad [Pawar] ji who created an environment against the BJP and Congress who will never go with BJP.”
Raut also hinted that the BJP doesn’t have the luxury of looking elsewhere in Maharashtra and will have to bend in to Shiv Sena’s demands. He also said, “We believe in the alliance (with BJP) as we contested the polls jointly. But the BJP should not compel us to commit the sin of looking for an alternative for government formation.” By committing a “sin” he obviously meant aligning with the NCP and the Congress. Sanjay Raut’s remark was clearly made with the intention of giving a subtle hint to the BJP that the Uddhav Thackrey-led party has the option of looking at alternatives
However, in an off chance, if Sena decides to side with Congress and NCP to form an alliance, it would be a big blunder on the part of Uddhav Thackeray as the Congress is notoriously known for its habit of muscling the other parties in alliance. The JDS-Congress coalition fiasco is still vivid in the public’s memory. The alliance between Congress and JDS was formed in desperation to get power and keep the BJP out, something which the Congress and NCP want in Maharashtra and Shiv Sena would be a fool if it falls prey to it. The ‘opportunistic’ alliance in Karnataka could not bury the inter-party rivalry and deep hatred for the leaders, and as a result, the demons came out no sooner after the alliance was announced.
After HD Kumaraswamy’s oath as the Chief Minister of Karnataka, a bitter fight ensued between Congress and JDS over the distribution of cabinet portfolios in the government. The alliance somehow sailed for a year but it was always a stormy one with accusations flying from one side to another, mostly resulting in a moist-eyed CM. Kumaraswamy had become fed up of Congress and in the month of July last year broke down into tears at a public event expressing his anger saying, “All of you are happy because your elder or younger brother has become the chief minister. But I am not happy. I am swallowing my own pain like poison, like Vishakantha (Lord Shiva, who drank poison to save the world).”
If the alliance of Congress and Sena takes place and the supremo Thackeray is reduced to tears in a similar situation, it could spell doom for Thackeray and his party as Sena is built on its hardliner image and it would not be good for the optics. As we have seen from the Karnataka experiment where Kumaraswamy was reduced to a puppet and left to fend for himself in the middle where Congress tried to muscle its way in every decision he tried to take. It would be hara-kiri if Uddhav Thackeray takes this route.
Congress and NCP might be weak in the state by numbers but its political leaders like Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel to name a few have the capability to take down Shiv Sena from inside once it comes under their fold. Sena should try to look at the bigger picture. Even in Haryana, going with Congress would have meant that JJP and Chautala would have scored the coveted Chief Minister’s post but in hindsight it would have been a short-term gain only, but he took a wise step and allied with BJP to thwart any such problem. The fact that BJP as a party always values its alliance partners more than anything else unlike Congress should be a reason enough for Shiv Sena to stay with the alliance.