Wednesday Brief

So  more than a month after the results were announced for the Maharashtra assembly elections, now there is clarity about the formation of govt. After the brief stint of BJP and NCP (Ajit Pawar) led govt, which resigned yesterday, now the decks have been cleared for the alliance of 3 political parties ie Shiv Sena (56 seats), NCP (54 seats) and Congress (44 seats) to form a govt. As per the demands of Shiv Sena, other parties have conceded the CM’s post to Shiv Sena, and both Congress and NCP insisted that Udhav Thackrey be the CM of Maharashtra, who initially was proposing the name of his son Aditya Thackrey but in the end reluctantly accepted the CM’s post.

In this episode one person who has re establish himself on the political scene in NCP’s Chief Sharad Pawar. It is very apparent that he is going to run this govt by remote control, because till now Udhav Thackrey has not been able to establish any concrete/solid contacts with Congress’s central/state leader ship, and all the negotiations for Congress to support Shiv Sena were through Sharad Pawar only. Udhav Thackrey who is not having any legislative experience till date is going to be CM of  Maharashtra. He is going to be very reluctant CM, all the time he will have to take help from Congress/NCP while running the govt and he will not be able to take any decision by himself. It might require complete trust and whether there will be trust between these three highly un natural partners, only time will tell.

This three party alliance is Pawar’s creation, and without Pawar stepping in, it would not have happened, because Congress and Shiv Sena leadership were not even on talking terms. This three party rule is going to be difficult to navigate, with  many demands  and expectation. Does Udhav is having necessary skills to negotiate this complicated process? Secondly Udhav has to face with opposition leader like Devendra Fadnavis  who knows the workings of legislature and bureaucracy very well. Additionally Udhav has to work with leaders like Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj Chavan (both ex CM), Chagan Bhujbal (ex Dy CM) and many other experienced leaders from his associate parties, that means he will have to satisfy the egos so many leaders.

Udhav might be the first among equals in this govt, but we will have to watch if the others accept this, and what kind of disharmony or harmony persists among the leaders of three parties. He took a risk when he parted ways with BJP, Narendra Modi & Amit Shah will not forget this easily, and they will fight back. Doing business with Pawar and Sonia Gandhi is not going to be easy, specially as there is no ideological compatibility between Congress and Sena. One more problem which Udhav will have to tackle at his home front, that is how he is going to explain the Sena’s ideological drift from Hindutva to his cadre. A person who was all the time rooting for Lard Ram temple at Ayodhya is going to align with parties who have no Hindutva ideology, especially Congress who has always been pro Muslim party and their leaders  , as advocate, were contesting the Ayodhya land case in SC for Muslim organisations

See the irony of the situation, the party with the largest number of seats (105) and having best strike rate (ratio of numbers of seats contested and numbers of seats won) ie BJP will be sitting in the opposition. Second irony is that  this elections were fought between two alliances that of NCP/Congress, and BJP/Shiv Sena. As both the alliance were projecting different ideology, NCP/Congress are supposed to be secular parties, and they have been opposing all the times both BJP and Sena whom they considered parties with a staunch Hindutva ideology. As after the results BJP did not agree for Sena’s demand of sharing CM’s post for half the term of the assembly (ie 2.5 years each party), Sena started exploring the other possibilities, and they approached Sharad Pawar of NCP for getting support from his party and Congress. Congress in the end agreed to support Shiv Sena, after getting Sena to agree for the Common Minimum Programme (CMP).

There is one more fact which is to be considered here, because Shiv Sena was in Pre poll alliance with BJP, they got the benefit of good works done by Narendra Modi’s govt at centre and Devendra Fadnavis’s govt at state, and if they were not in pre poll alliance with BJP, whether they would have got 56 seats is not sure.

In the whole process the voters are being felt cheated by all the political parties, because people voted for either NCP/Congress or BJP/Shiv Sena alliance and voters voted as per their preference of the alliances. Now the question to be asked , Is this the democracy in which Indians have to live in future? Are our leaders who drafted our constitution ever thought of this scenario happening in future? If there is anti defection law for a political party, why can’t there will be law which should bar any political party which is in Pre Poll alliance with other political party or parties, from leaving the alliance. If any political party wants to leave the pre poll alliance then their winning candidates are to be disqualified because they have garnered the votes in the name of alliance, and they should be asked to contest the elections again if they want to go with some other political party. Recently Supreme Court (SC) disqualified some MLAs of Karnataka assembly, who defected from JD(S) party after their party’s post poll alliance with Congress. These MLAs allowed to re contest the assembly by polls from any other party. Why the same  rule should not apply for pre poll alliance? In this case if Shiv Sena wanted  to leave their pre poll alliance with BJP, then all their MLAs would have been disqualified, and asked to re contest the poll with announcement that they are aligning with NCP/Congress. There is PIL in SC on this matter, but in Indian democracy who is bothered about common voter, if that would have been case, the SC looking into happenings in Maharashtra should have heard this PIL first then heard all the petitions filed by these power hungry politicians.

What you say my friends.

Awaiting your feed backs/comments/views.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

27^th Nov 2019