Maharashtra polls: Unfolding of unusual contours

Two political parties that split just over two years ago, the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party, are fighting the splinter group and they see it as an existential battle. It is the Shiv Sena Vs the Shiv Sena (Shinde) and the NCP vs NCP (Ajit Pawar).

The agenda of the four groups is less the choice to form a government and more to prove that each one of them is stronger by commanding more seats and vote share. These two factors would legitimize their split. If Ajit Pawar gets more than Sharad Pawar’s NCP, the parent party, then he will strut about as the original.

Likewise with the Shiv Sena. Uddhav Thackeray leads the original but the symbol is with the breakaway.

The Election Commission had allotted the original symbol of the clock to the splinter NCP outfit. So it did with the breakaway Shiv Sena by allotting the bow and arrow. The parent parties see themselves as the parent despite having to use the new symbols. They do see the disadvantage of such symbol allocation but the results of the recent Lok Sabha polls gave them some heart; they had won more seats.

It all seems so surreal that the parents have to fight so hard to prove themselves against the splinters because Maharashtra is the second largest state after Uttar Pradesh in seats as an index, Narendra Modi would be the big backer of the breakaways because with them is tied the fate of the Bharatiya Janata Party which has the biggest presence in the outgoing Assembly – 125 seats of the 288.

Because the BJP is not fighting alone, but in concert with its allies led by Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, the pressure to return to power is high. Modi and Yogi Adityanath are expected to go on a blitzkrieg of rallies that the smaller regional party would find it hard to match. The regional parties would depend on fewer for want of matching resources.

The Opposition would be making a series of promises and pointing out lapses and corruption, as is normally the case when on the stump. The three parties running the government, however, have had a head start and the last three to four weeks have not only made several announcements but brought many into play already.

The flurry includes allocation of free lands including a former dumping ground in the heart of the city and salt pans to Adani for rehabilitation of the Dharavi slum dwellers with no revenue to the city. It has made women cutting across the party loyalties a cash transfer of Rs 1,500 per month. Two crores of happy women is not a small number.

In the past two weeks or so, Eknath Shinde-led government has been showering largesse. Over a thousand Government Resolutions (GRs) have been issued and the cabinet meetings held almost every other day have something new approved. Almost overnight the motorists entering and exiting the city did not have to pay any tolls.

The government has just loosened its purse strings as if there was no tomorrow to worry about, and the Opposition parties are scratching their heads about what mentions should be made in their joint manifesto. Congress, for instance, opt for Rs 2,000 payout per woman but it is likely sound like a ‘me too’. The first thing the Opposition did was issue a charge-sheet of the errors of the government.

Even the seat sharing has not been finalized – and it goes for all parties across the board – though the Election Commission has given all parties just six days to file nominations after it announced the date of the polls. That has more or less halted the campaign and driven the parties into a huddle. Of course, the NCP (Sharad Pawar) is busy checking the winnability of candidates because even those who backed its breakaway faction in the Lok Sabha elections have knocked on the senior Maratha’s doors. He seems to be burdened with the problem of plenty.

This in turn could upset the die-hard followers if the outsiders are fielded. No other party has this issue to face, and there is a chance that the Bharatiya Janata Party may risk it. It is, after all, a party that wants to win a seat, never mind who the candidate is, even if that person has been bad-mouthed even in recent times. It is nonchalant about what the party cadres think.