The faultlines in the three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi

“Pawar and Adani have known each other personally for long. We have no reason to hazard any guesses about politics…,” senior Congress leader and former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said. “There is no ambiguity,” he insisted, “We are firm on JPC on Adani.”

The Congress and NCP have been political alliance partners in Maharashtra post the 1999 Assembly elections. Despite internal conflicts, the Congress-NCP alliance, pitched on a secular plank, has withstood the pulls and pressures for upmanship and worked successfully from 1999 to 2014.

However, post-2019, the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena (then undivided) alliance only lasted for 2.5 years. The rebellion and subsequent split in the Shiv Sena paved the way for the BJP to return to power in Maharashtra.

Relegated to the Opposition, the three-party MVA coalition has been floundering, with each party struggling to keep its house in order. When Uddhav Thackeray became the Maharashtra chief minister, wary of BJP returning to power, the Congress and NCP leaders rallied around him. But in Opposition, neither NCP leader Ajit Pawar nor Congress chief Nana Patole is willing to accept Thackeray as the MVA leader.

“Why should Congress always take a back seat? We were getting secondary treatment in fund allocation and portfolios in the MVA. But at least we were equal as ministers. Why should we accept NCP and Shiv Sena (UBT) leadership?” a former Congress minister from Vidarbha region said. It was Rahul Gandhi “who showed the courage to take BJP and PM Modi by the horns,” he asserted.

Notwithstanding the teething problems within the coalition, the point that comes across after speaking to leaders from all political parties in the state is: In Maharashtra, while two is workable, three is a crowd. The rumours about Ajit Pawar’s defection – vehemently denied by the NCP leader – are a case in point.

“The BJP’s doors are open for one and all. It is part of our expansion plan provided they accept our party and leadership of PM Narendra Modi… we are on an expansion spree across 97,000 booths,” state BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule said. “We don’t see anything wrong in the Pawar-Adani meeting. We have no reason to comment,” he added.

While undertaking its expansion plan, the BJP reckons it cannot overlook the concerns of its new ally, the Shiv Sena (Shinde), which is equally assertive. While Shinde faction spokesperson Sanjay Shirsat threatened to “walk out” if the NCP joins them, others said they would not “compromise on Shinde’s CM post”.

“In politics, nobody is permanent, friends nor enemies,” a political strategist in BJP argued. “We have to adopt different strategies. First, we have to consolidate our base through all possible permutations and combinations to retain the 42-plus target in Lok Sabha. It could be tapping potential leaders/candidates from other parties before the polls…[we could] also engage some factions in dialogue for future partnership,” he added.

The BJP central leadership has set an ambitious target of 350 seats. Currently, it has 303 seats. A party insider said, “Maharashtra is the second largest state and cannot afford any complacency.”