Nowadays it has become very common in political scenarios that the parties break the alliances at the drop of hat, even when they have fought the elections after forming a pre poll alliance. This is definitely a betrayal committed by the political parties with their voters, who voted them to power as an alliance partner. Secondly, there are many instances when elected representatives break away from the parties on whose ticket and name they were elected, this is also a betrayal because voters elected them on the basis of which political party they belong to.
Here are some of the instances of Unholy alliances which happened in Parliament and State Assemblies:
1Break Up of Janata Party- After the emergency was lifted by then PM Indira Gandhi and general elections were announced in 1977. Many political parties like Socialist Parties, Jan Sangh, and some left parties formed an alliance which was called Janata Party, and they fought election against Congress and won. They formed the government with Morarji Desai as PM. But as the leaders with different ideologies were there in the government- Charan Singh who was then deputy PM revolted and broke Janata Party and was sworn in as PM with Congress promising him outside support. But before he could prove the majority on the floor of the house, Congress withdrew support. Then President ordered fresh elections, and Charan Singh became caretaker PM.
2 In 1989, after the general elections no single party or alliance could win the majority seats. Although Congress was the largest party, it declined to form the government. A government was formed with an alliance formed by parties headed by VP Singh, Devi Lal, and Chandrashekhar, with outside support of the BJP, and VP Singh became the PM, but this was not liked by Chandrashekhar who also wanted PM’s post. BJP withdrew its support when their leader LK Advani’s rath yatra was stopped in support of Ram Janam Bhoomi at the location of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. At that time Chandrashekhar who was supported by around 55 MP formed the government with the outside support of Congress. But within a few months, Congress withdrew the support, and a fresh election was ordered by President.
3 After the 1996 election no party got the majority. BJP being the largest party was invited by President to form the government with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as PM. But this government fell down in 13 days when it was unable to secure the support of other parties for the majority. After this faction of Janata Dal claimed to form the government with the outside support of Congress, and Deve Gowda became PM. But as Congress was not happy with the functioning of Deve Gowda, they threatened to withdraw their support, unless PM is changed. As a compromise IK Gujral became PM, but this government also did not last long.
4 The alliance was Shiv Sena and BJP goes back a long way, and for the first time, they formed a government in Maharashtra with Shiv Sena being the senior partner. After that, they fought all the general elections and assembly elections as alliance partners. When BJP formed the government at the Centre in 2014, Shiv Sena was part of the NDA. The alliance won the state assembly elections in 2014, and this time BJP became the senior partner, and Devendra Fadnavis became CM. Again in 2019 the parliament election they were an alliance, and even in state assembly elections in 2019 they fought as alliance partners, with both the parties fighting the election on an equal number of seats. When the results came BJP had won 105 seats against 55 of Shiv Sena. But this time Shiv Sena insisted that it was promised by BJP’s top brass that the CM post will be shared by both the faction for two and half years, but BJP declined giving any such promise. Shiv Sena broke the alliance, and with the support of Congress and NCP formed the government. But there was resentment among many Sena leaders and grass root level workers about this alliance as there were ideological differences. So in June 2022 about 40 Sena MLAs broke away from Shiv Sena and called themselves the real Shiv Sena as they had the support of about 50 MLAs, and Sena headed by CM Udhav Thackrey had the support of just 18 MLAs. In the end, this break-away faction headed by Eknath Shinde formed an alliance with BJP and formed the government with Eknath Shinde as CM.
5 Prior to 2013 Nitish Kumar had a pre-poll alliance with BJP, but when BJP announced Narendra Modi as their PM candidate for the 2014 Parliament elections, he broke the alliance with the BJP saying that Modi was part of the Gujarat riots in 2002. In 2017, he came back to BJP, when he had differences with RJD & Congress, the alliance partners. Next state assembly elections BJP and Nitish Kumar’s JDU fought as alliance partners. After the results, BJP won 77 seats and JDU won 44 seats, but still, BJP agreed to Nitish Kumar as CM, because during the election rallies it was announced that he will be the alliance’s CM. Now yesterday again he broke the alliance with BJP, and has formed
There are many more such instances, but above mentioned were the major instances. One such instance which comes to mind is that of Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP and BJP in J&K, but now it has become evident the BJP formed this alliance with PDP, as they wanted to be part of J&K government, to get the feel of what is happening inside the government of J&K vis a vis the outside terrorists/terror situation in the State, as there were news that state government of J&K is going soft towards terrorist organisation.
There should be law against such alliances, when an alliance has formed a government as per mandate of voters, then they do not have the right to break away from the alliance and form the government with other political parties, as these type of alliances betrays the trust of voters, and thus in my opinion they are UNHOLY alliances.
Waiting for your views on this blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
10th August 2022.