State of turmoil

The Congress and NCP may be partners in the Democratic Front (DF) government, but they are also rivals for the same votebank. In the 2004 assembly polls, the NCP emerged as the single-largest party with 71 members; the Congress won 68 in the House of 288. It took over a month’s deliberations for them to form the government. The Congress got the chief minister’s chair, while the NCP got more ministerial berths and important portfolios. But the ‘secular’ allies could not arrive at a consensus on sharing political appointments — of special executive officers, official committees from the district-level upwards, and state-run corporations. Those issues still lie under the carpet, where they were swept in 2004.

About two years ago, Narayan Rane — then a trusted aide of Sena chief Bal Thackeray — raised the flag of revolt against Thackeray’s son and executive president of the party, Uddhav. Rane quit as Sena leader and was sacked. He got re-elected on a Congress ticket. He also engineered defections of seven Sena MLAs, out of which six got re-elected on Congress tickets, increasing the Congress numbers to 75, thereby upstaging the NCP as No 1. Being the chief minister in 1999 (during Sena-BJP rule), Rane is considered a threat to Deshmukh and is cheered on by the anti-Deshmukh camp led by Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Prabha Rau and AICC in-charge of the state, Margaret Alva.

The NCP, on the other hand, has armtwisted the Congress on various occasions. It defeated the Congress nominee for Rajya Sabha Avinash Pande by supporting independent industrialist Rahul Bajaj, backed by the Sena. Likewise, the NCP wrested power from the Congress in the Pune municipal corporation with Sena support. The NCP has a strong base in rural Maharashtra where rich Marathas run their fiefdoms through cooperatives. The NCP has already gone into poll mode. It has even floated a new outfit — the Dalit, Muslim, OBC Manch to consolidate its position among the minorities.

One of the major setbacks to Sharad Pawar’s dreams of becoming prime minister was the election of Pratibha Patil as president. Though the party supported Patil, the NCP is annoyed at what could be a side-effect of that choice: the president and prime minister have never been from the same state.

The tension between the Sena and BJP has also been building up. There has been friction on several occasions — like the Chimur assembly bypoll — where the Sena MLA had quit, joining the Congress, and the BJP wanted to contest the seat. When differences between BJP’s state chief and Uddhav Thackeray reached a flashpoint, Thackeray Sr intervened and let the BJP contest, and lose.

The presidential poll boosted the tension as the Sena supported Patil. The latest rift was evident in the poll for the legislative council from the Aurangabad-Jalna local bodies. The BJP refused to support Sena’s nominee and supported an independent.

The BJP has not been able to fill the void left by Pramod Mahajan. There is a strong feeling among the BJP leaders that the Sena has taken them for granted.

The saffron partners have been at loggerheads over issues like SEZs. As an opposition party, the Sena has always targetted the Congress more than the NCP. The Sena supported Pawar’s daughter, Supriya Sule, for Rajya Sabha, for instance.

So, with the possibility of a snap poll on the horizon, the Sena is uncomfortable with its ally of 22 years, the BJP, and a similar discomfort is to be found in the secular alliance on the other side. The demand to take action on the recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission has only stoked these tensions further.

The moment may be ripe, in the foreseeable future, for a re-alignment in the secular and saffron camps. Will the Sena and NCP — parties that have much in common, including their leadership pattern and their views on Sonia’s nationality, besides Pawar’s friendship with Thackeray — come together formally? Will the BJP seek the support of Raj’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), in case its alliance with the Shiv Sena breaks?