BJP – Shiv Sena : Uneasy Alliance for Maharashtra Assembly Polls 2014

By Deepak Parvatiyar

September 20, 2014

Birds of same feathers flock together. So, didn’t it come as a surprise that the ‘rightists’ Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena (SS) might severe their over-a-quarter century partnership just for a few seat adjustments in the run up to the ensuing assembly elections in Maharashtra?

Here is a quick recap –

• Riding the crest after its victory at the last Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had demanded an equal share of seats – 135 each – from the SS. In a 288-member Maharashtra assembly, it wanted the remaining 18 seats to be given to the junior partners in the alliance that included the Republican Party of India (Athavale), the Swabhimaani Shetkari Paksha, Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP) and Shivasangram.
• The SS has rejected such a proposition and instead wants to contest 155 seats, leaving in the process, 119 seats for the BJP and other alliance partners  – an offer  seemingly unacceptable to the BJP and its president Amit Shah who even invoked the ‘self respect’ clause to protest the Sena’s stand while addressing his party workers in Kolhapur.
• Sena Supremo Uddhav Thackeray on his part has dared the BJP to break the alliance on the pretext of seat sharing.  He had rather preferred to ignore the 24 hour deadline set for it by the BJP on Thursday to respond to the latter’s demand of contesting an equal number of assembly seats in the state.

Shiv Sena :  An Aggressive Ally

How can we analyse the BJP’s threat and the Sena’s obduracy?

You may also like to read

• Maharashtra Assembly Polls 2014
• About Shiv Sena
• About Bharatiya Janata Party

Before dwelling more on the question, another question that merits an answer is that don’t the BJP and the Sena together share the common umbilical cord of Hindutva?

Obviously, Sena has been a more aggressive partner in espousing the cause of the self-proclaimed Hindutva agenda of the RSS–led saffron brigade – be it the demolition of the Babri Mosque, the Mumbai riots and so on.

BJP: Growing Ambitions for Independent Political Space

Why should BJP and Shiv Sena part their ways in such a haste over a matter of a few seat adjustments that, given their long standing relationship, could have been resolved by mutual discussions?  After all, earlier the BJP had yielded to the Sena’s demands of projecting Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar as Prime Minister and thereafter, supporting the candidature of Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee for President?

The BJP had also not objected when the Sena refused to yield even “a single assembly seat” in bargain when the former gave away six sitting seats in the Lok Sabha and one in the Rajya Sabha to the Sena!

It may be mentioned that the Shiv Sena’s support had always been crucial for the BJP and in the past the latter had no qualms playing a second fiddle to it in Maharashtra. Yet, the new blood in the BJP under the stewardship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems keener to create an independent identity for the party.

Consider these –

• The BJP snapped its ties with the Janata Dal (United) and withdrew its support to the Bihar government following the then Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s objection over projecting Narendra Modi as BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate last year.
• In Haryana, the BJP discontinued its pact with the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) recently.
• In Jharkhand, it withdrew support to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha government earlier this year.

It is significant that barring Bihar, all the above mentioned states – Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand – face assembly polls this year.

Maharashtra Chief Ministership: The Bone of Contention

What made the BJP dare challenge the tiger in its den in Maharashtra?

It is being pointed out that in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP’s hit rate of 95.8 per cent was considerably higher than that of Sena’s at 90 per cent while the alliance led in 240 of the 288 Assembly segments in the Lok Sabha elections. For the first time in state politics, statistics favoured the BJP to assume the mantle of big brother – a prospect that could deprive the Shiv Sena of staking its claim at the CM’s chair in case the alliance wins the state elections in Maharashtra this time.

BJP-Shiv Sena Rift : A Political Posturing?

Seemingly, the BJP is in a hurry to expand its political base. More so now after its win in the general elections for it sounds appropriate to strike when the iron is hot. (Remember, the BJP’s suggestion to contest an equal number of seats with the SS came at the backdrop of its stupendous success in the Lok Sabha?) Yet, in a bid to do so, can we say it has erred by equating the Shiv Sena with an HJC? After all, unlike the HJC, which drew a blank while BJP won seven of the ten seats in Haryana, the Shiv Sena did win an impressive 18 of the total 48 parliament seats in Maharashtra – second only to the BJP’s tally of 23 seats from the state!

Still, more important is that unlike in other states where the BJP severed ties with its partners, Maharashtra is an all together different ball game also because any discord between the Sena and the BJP does have the portents of being interpreted as a rift among the Hindutva forces!

Hence, we come back to our very first poser. Doesn’t it appear more palatable that the present discord between the two is simply the political posturing – which is so common before any election?

Little surprise therefore that as I write this blog, news is already trickling in that the alliance may survive. The BJP seems to have mellowed down from its earlier stand of demanding a larger share of seats to contest in the state elections.  The core committee of the party, that met in Mumbai on 19th September, has sought a new seat sharing formula wherein the party could contest those seats too where neither it nor the Sena could ever win. The core group was also unanimous in its desire to continue the alliance with the Shiv Sena.

Yet, can we suggest this climb down by the BJP as an afterthought following its dismal showing at the recent assembly by-poll in nine states?

In the game of political one-upmanship though, there is no denial of the fact that the situation is still fluid. And the entire nation watches the two uneasy allies, ‘fight together’!