New Delhi: The biggest roadblock in the coming together of historically adversarial groups like the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance and the far-right Shiv Sena is primarily ideological. However, the three parties may set their differences aside and could form the government in Maharashtra with their combined numbers.
The shared understanding appears to be that the three parties, which have been rendered weak and fragile with the rise of the BJP in the state, could not afford to lose power when it is very much in sight. The move can also be seen as a desperate attempt to have the last laugh by cornering the dominant BJP, which ended up as the single largest party in the assembly elections, in its own play.
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Yet, dissent within the Congress has prevented the party high command from taking a clear decision. It is said that a majority of Congress MLAs want to be a part of the government, while some senior leaders deem supporting a Sena-led government as political suicide.
On Monday, after giving positive indications through the day that the party may give outside support to a Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party government, it backed out at the last moment, thereby extending the fortnight-long uncertainty in Maharashtra.
However, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) did not rule out the possibility of the party supporting such a coalition. With the NCP’s having time to respond to the governor’s call until Tuesday, the coalition may still fructify. And this unlikely alliance will get its own shot at the BJP.
The statement released by the Congress late evening.
Beating BJP at its own game
The BJP has used all the tricks – both within the constitutional realm and outside of it – to prevent opposition parties from coming to power in states like Goa, Meghalaya, Manipur, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir. These are the states where the BJP, despite not emerging as the single-largest party, outwitted the opposition and took power.
In Manipur and Goa, where the BJP finished second to the Congress, it stitched up post-poll alliances against the nationalist agenda to form the state government. It was aided by the respective governors of the states refusing to give the single largest party, the Congress, the first chance to form the government.
In Jammu and Kashmir, it partnered with an unlikely ally, Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP), to grab power. Interestingly, the Modi government has treated its former ally as nothing less than a separatist force soon after its partnership collapsed. It has put Mehbooba Mufti in detention ever since it withdrew the state’s constitutional autonomy.
In Bihar, the BJP engineered a coup of sorts to break the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Janata Dal (United) mahagathbandhan. The saffron party likened Nitish Kumar’s government in alliance with the RJD as jungle raj and made a series of corruption allegations against it. However, it had no hesitation to support the chief minister once he broke ties with the RJD. Of course, its support did not come for free. The BJP is almost an equal partner in the Bihar state government now, with Sushil Kumar Modi as the deputy chief minister.
Similarly, through the infamous ‘Operation Lotus’, the BJP allegedly engineered mass defections in the ruling Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) combine in Karnataka to come to power.
Against such an anti-democratic political backdrop and an all-pervasive air of ravenousness for power, the post-poll scenario in Maharashtra presented an opportunity for both the Congress-NCP and Shiv Sena to take their shot at the BJP. Currently, it looks like the Congress will support a Shiv Sena-NCP government from the outside.
If the three parties manage to steer a stable government, it will surely come as an insult to the injured Devendra Fadnavis, the outgoing BJP chief minister. Despite Sena’s repeated attempts to broker an agreement, Fadnavis declined the option of sharing the chief ministerial position with the BJP’s ally.
Political ethics, a casualty
Nonetheless, what one saw in Maharashtra over the last fortnight was a suspension of all political ethics. While the Shiv Sena blamed the BJP for reneging on its promise of the 50:50 power sharing formula, the latter claimed it had never agreed to share the chief ministerial position. Yet, the breach of a pre-poll understanding between the BJP and Sena may set a precedent so undemocratic that a voter may always struggle to believe in political alliances. In effect, the Maharashtra experiment could further cement the idea that ‘opportunism’ is the principal driver of Indian politics.
The same can be said about the so-called secular parties. Despite the initial view that it would never ally with a hardcore Hindutva party like the Shiv Sena, the Congress has come around to consider this possibility.
Sharad Pawar, too, made multiple statements that the electoral mandate for his party, the NCP, was to sit in the opposition. Yet, Pawar emerged as the chief power broker between the Congress and Shiv Sena over the past few days. There was a stark gap in what Pawar said and what he eventually did.
That the unlikely alliance between the Sena and Congress-NCP may come only days after the Supreme Court’s verdict cleared the decks for a Ram temple in Ayodhya makes it even starker. The Congress has welcomed the judgment to prevent polarisation around the issue, but the two forces have historically been on two opposite ends of the Ayodhya debate.
Of course, they are likely to pedal the logic that the state should not be pushed into another election because of the BJP’s refusal to stake claim to form the government. And that they stepped up to take that responsibility. However, the Machiavellianism of it all is transparent, as power-hungry leaders of the three parties continue to coat a fig leaf over their unprincipled politics.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar arrives for party core committee meeting on Monday. Photo: PTI
Impact on Maharashtra politics
On the ground, it is almost impossible that the Congress and Shiv Sena’s constituencies will join forces. However, the same can’t be said about the NCP and Shiv Sena: both parties were born out of their nationalist leanings.
The Congress is the only unnatural ally in the combine, which is the reason it may stay outside the government. The way elected MLAs and organisational leaders have been fighting among themselves on the question of extending support to a Shiv Sena-led government seems to have divided the party further in the state. With mostly Dalits and Muslims as its core support group, the Congress will have to play the role of a constructive opposition even while supporting the government to stay relevant.
Parimal Maya Sudhakar, a faculty member in the MIT School of Government in Pune, told The Wire that the Congress will have to play a good oppositional role. “It has to keep raising people’s issues and communicate clearly that it is supporting the Shiv Sena for reasons concerning the stability of the government. It has to keep raising people’s issues. Shiv Sena did the same while being in the BJP-led government,” he said.
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For the Shiv Sena, the move risks losing much of its base to the BJP, which will likely go on the offensive against its oldest ally. It may now project itself as the sole custodian of Hindutva politics. How the Sena, with the NCP and Congress as its partners, negotiates with such ideological issues will be keenly watched.
At the moment, however, it may use its state power to consolidate its traditional ground.
“Over the past few years, the Sena has been losing control in all its strongholds – Mumbai-Thane, Aurangabad, and Nashik – to the BJP. That is why it may look to do well in the municipal elections due in another two years,” said Sudhakar.
If the coalition works out, the NCP stands to gain the most. “As a largely regional party, Pawar and his party members need to be in power or close to it. Given its strength, it has put up a good show. When in government, it will attempt to re-energise its socio-economic networks and protect the interests of its voter constituency, primarily the Marathas,” Sudhakar says.
It is a win-win situation for the NCP. It is neither strongly inclined towards a secular ideology nor has a turf-tussle with the Shiv Sena. While the NCP has a strong rural presence in Western Maharashtra and Marathwada, the Sena has its eyes only on urban constituencies.
The Marathas – a dominant agrarian community – have enjoyed a disproportionate share of power in the state but have been feeling left out with the BJP at the helm of affairs. They backed the NCP wholeheartedly in the assembly elections, and that reflects in the NCP’s strong interest in forming the government.
In the process, however, the “Maratha versus the Rest” politics that the BJP has played in Maharashtra may get a further fillip because of the communities that NCP, Shiv Sena and Congress combine represents. “The BJP had a strong urban presence but it became a force to reckon with in rural areas by representing marginalised OBCs like Dhangars and Kolis, a substantial chunk of Maharashtra’s population,” said Harish Wankhede, assistant professor of political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Wankhede feels that a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government will, thus, result in a bundle of contradictions, and problems between the unlikely allies would emerge soon over the distribution of resources.
“The BJP and the Shiv Sena are natural allies and there is a possibility they will come together in a few months. Any other coalition, to me, looks like an ad-hoc arrangement. There is also a possibility that the NCP may abandon the Congress to stay in power. As a result, I see a near-decimation of the Congress in the future,” he said.
By supporting a Shiv Sena-led government, the Congress has risked rubbing both Dalits and Muslims – its core constituency – the wrong way. With support from other communities unlikely to grow, its stakes to stay relevant are higher than before.
The cumulative socio-economic interests of the communities that the NCP, Shiv Sena, and Congress represent may play a greater role than ideological differences in facilitating the improbable political alliance in Maharashtra. Sustaining it, however, will be much more difficult than it appears now.
