Just the break that the BJP needed

Going by the conventional wisdom of electoral politics, the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance would have likely swept the October 15 state assembly elections in Maharashtra. So, there was actually no need to have upset the apple cart, considering that the alliance had been working for more than 25 years. Now the Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray does carry his share of the blame for this divorce, but the main reason is that the BJP has dared to dream.

For too long, the BJP had been the junior partner in state politics. But in the changed political scenario, its leaders have dared to dream and shown the courage to believe in themselves. It is a bold political move, but it would be plain silly to expect anything else in a ‘modified’ BJP, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the party chief, Amit Shah, at the helm of affairs. Together, they have worked on such strategies and achieved the unthinkable — a BJP government at the Centre.

Forget the NDA tag, in the year 2014 that is just lip service to a bygone era of coalition politics, a late ’90s brand. The voters of India have shown in state after state that they are simply fed up of the compulsions of coalition politics, and have voted wholeheartedly for single party rule everywhere, even when political pundits were predicting hung assemblies.

So, even if the studio pundits keep arguing that the BJP has never contested all the 288 seats of the Maharashtra state assembly, and the Congress is the only party to have ruled the state on its own, the BJP’s belief in its own strength is a welcome break from the politics of diffidence. It will take less than two weeks for the people to give their verdict, and then there will be all the time to dissect it and conduct post mortems ad nauseam.

But then all decisions are taken on the basis of available evidence, and even if they are proved wrong at a later date, have to be evaluated in that light. The BJP had placed a simple demand before Thackeray. Let us contest the elections as equal partners with 135 seats each, and leave the remaining 18 for the allies. Anyone with the required political understanding of the situation would have accepted this position after a bit of haggling. It would be quite simple to realise that in the present situation, the Sena, had it gone with the BJP, would have won more seats than by going it alone. Moreover, regardless of the compromise, while certainly not 135 seats each, the Sena would have had a shot at more seats than the BJP. So, they could have ended up getting more seats than the BJP and rightfully staked a claim to the chief minister’s post. But then Uddhav did not want anything like that and wanted the issue settled before the polls. Perhaps, he forgot that the Thackerays are good at using the remote control, and that he could have exercised it even if the Sena had emerged as a junior partner in the ruling coalition.

Ideally, after the SS-BJP split, it would have made eminent sense for the Congress-NCP to stick together. Together they stood a better chance, and could have improved their showing. But once again, that would be conventional wisdom, and that makes little sense in the present-day scenario.

However, the best thing about these break-ups is that these are not final in any manner of speaking.

Given that one party, the BJP, has promised the separate state of Vidarbha, it is quite likely a single party rule — obviously the BJP, may also see the break-up of the state in the next five years. After all, then, with BJP governments both at the centre and state, there would be no reason to delay the creation of Vidarbha. And if the state of Vidarbha comes into being, can a separate Marathwada be far behind? So, is the SS-BJP break-up going to have a cascade effect? The coming days will lead us closer to an answer.