Cong may get upper hand in alliance with NCP

The Lok Sabha results are expected to change the political equations between ruling allies Congress and NCP as well as the opposition BJP...

The Lok Sabha results are expected to change the political equations between ruling allies Congress and NCP as well as the opposition BJP and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra,where Assembly polls are likely in four months.

The Congress won 16 seats as compared to the NCPs eight,which is likely to give the older party an upper hand in the alliance.

The Congress and the NCP have had a love-hate relationship over the past five years in the state despite being partners in the ruling alliance. The NCP had invited the wrath of the Congress on various occasions for doing things detrimental to its interest. Like,backing Sena-BJP supported Independent candidate industrialist Rahul Bajaj for Rajya Sabha to defeat the Congress nominee and forming an alliance with the Sena in Pune Municipal Corporation to prevent the Congress from retaining power.

The bickering had resulted in a war of words,intermittently,between the two partners,who had also fought several local elections including municipal corporation polls in Mumbai and nine other cities against each other.

In the 2004 Assembly elections,the NCP had emerged as the single-largest party,winning 71 seats,followed by the Congress with 69 seats. It took one month of haggling between them to form the coalition government.

Since the Congress and the NCP are allies as well as rivals,the former increased its number in the Assembly after Narayan Rane left the Sena and joined Congress in 2005. This enabled the Congress to emerge as the single-largest party in the Assembly by increasing its number to 75. Since then,the allies have been indulging in one-upmanship to gain an upper hand in state politics. There have been calls for breaking the alliance from both sides,but political compulsions have held them together.

The Lok Sabha results may require the NCP,which saw its count go down by one seat since the last general elections,to make overtures towards the Congress for a pre-poll alliance for the Assembly elections,shedding its traditional image of a bully.

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The outcome of the Lok Sabha polls have also brought to the fore the significance of the MNS factor in spoiling the winning chances of the Sena-BJP candidates.

While the Congress and the NCP would like the MNS to gather more strength and eat into the traditional votebanks of the Sena and the BJP,the saffron parties would be forced to rethink their political strategy for the Assembly polls. In the process,the Sena is likely to become more aggressive on local issues on Marathi and the sons of the soil agenda in order to combat the growth of the MNS.

The Lok Sabha election results would alsoe embolden the MNS into becoming more aggressive on the Marathi and the sons of the soil agenda to increase its strength for the Assembly polls.