Nationalistic Congress Sena!

Indian politics in the past seven decades has seen bizarre things. But nothing more bizarre than this. It must be the first time that a pre-poll alliance, after emerging victorious with a clear majority is not forming the government in a show of one-upmanship! When the wrangling between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena was going on a week ago over the Chief Minister’s post essentially, there was a post which was going viral on social media which said that it is Shiv Sena’s “Grim Trigger Strategy” at play. As per that post, this concept is explained as a special case of non-cooperative strategy in Game Theory, in which co-operation will leave everyone better off and non-cooperation will leave everyone worse off.  Back in 2014 after the Maharashtra state elections, I had alluded to Game theory at play again between BJP and Shiv Sena in my post titled “The Maha Gam(e)ble”! (read here).

The bottom line is, one of the oldest allies in the NDA namely the BJP and Shiv Sena, in the past 6 years, have contested together and stayed together (2014 LS polls), have contested separately but formed government together in a post poll alliance (2014 State polls) and have contested together and not forming the government together (2019 State polls)! This clearly indicates the fragile nature of the relationship between the two allies! Even while being an ally of the BJP, Shiv Sena has been the most non-cooperative and virulent critic of the Modi government since 2014!

It is not clear what the understanding was between the two parties when they sat together and decided to contest the Lok Sabha and then later the state elections together. Notwithstanding the same, having gone to the electorate and sought votes in an alliance and now not honouring the mandate, after the winning a fairly clear verdict in favour of the alliance is a mockery of the elections! It is taking the voters who voted in favour of the alliance for a wonderful ride.

If one looks back at the performance of Shiv Sena in the past many years, it is obvious that the Sena is on a slide. It terms of vote share, in the recently concluded elections, it is back to the 16.4% levels which it had way back in 1995!  On the contrary, BJP’s vote share has grown to 25.75 % levels from under 13% in the same period. Even in the last BMC elections, BJP stormed the citadel of Shiv Sena and got almost the same number of seats as Shiv Sena.  This explains the nervousness in its belly!

As per me, the performance of BJP in the BMC polls should have rung the warning bells for Shiv Sena.   Between BJP and Shiv Sena, there is a clear overlap of the vote bank. In the past, BJP was more concerned about the centre and hence was okay to accede more space to Shiv Sena in the state polls while pitching for a larger space in the Lok Sabha polls. While BJP has been growing its presence in the centre, the problem is, Shiv Sena did not do much to improve its presence within the state in the last 10 years! This is where the crux of the problem lies for Shiv Sena.

Here, ideally the Sena could have taken a leaf out of the books of a similar regional parties like the DMK or ADMK. These parties would always strike alliances with parties in the centre for the Lok Sabha polls essentially based on their strength within the state. While remaining in an alliance, they never let the so called “National party” grow beyond them in the state at any point in time. This means that the National parties, whether it is the Congress or the BJP had to play subservient to the regional parties in the alliance.

In the case of Shiv Sena, due to its own follies, it never grew its presence beyond its conventional vote bank. And in that, it let the BJP erode its core base as well!  When Shiv Sena got their first opportunity to form a government way back in 1994 in alliance with the BJP, it messed it up royally. The Chief Minister was openly dubbed as a puppet in the hands of the then Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackeray, who took glee in letting everybody know that the remote was always in his hands. The Chief Minister was changed interim and it was not long before that the government was thrown out of power. The backlash was so high that even during the emergence of the NDA and Vajpayee at the Centre could not help the NDA in Maharashtra!

In the past, when parties after having fought against during the elections came together to form the government in a post poll alliance, I have called it a blot on democracy. And we found such similar instances very often in the last 5 years when both BJP, Congress and regional parties were all involved in such post poll alliance arrangements just to be in power! As we saw in Jammu and Kashmir first and later in Karnataka such opportunistic tie-ups remained such and never lasted too long. At the end of the day, the contrasting world views, ideologies, pulls and pressures among these parties cut short the life of such governments. The voters have been repeatedly left high and dry with Maximum filibuster and Minimum Governance in such spells!

It is extremely unfortunate for the voters of Maharashtra who were presented with a pre-poll alliance and voted for the same. I don’t think that this act of betrayal by Shiv Sena will go un-noticed and un-punished by the electorate in the future.  As we speak, Shiv Sena is in extensive talks with the NCP and the Congress to cobble together an alliance. One can imagine the machinations which will be at play in those meeting rooms!

It is funny to see the Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray citing the example of BJP and PDP who are ideologically poles apart coming together.  That the experiment failed miserably is there for all to see! Why would one take so much pains to emulate a failed experiment??? Similarly, it is also funny hearing some experts citing the instance of Bal Thackeray supporting Indira Gandhi’s emergency to justify this coming together of the Sena and the Congress! That happened way back in 1977 almost 40 years ago!

Coming back to Game theory and the players involved, BJP has emerged with its stature and image enhanced. It would rue the day it decided to go along with Shiv Sena in the Lok Sabha and state polls!   Shiv Sena is now being seen as a party which would do anything to just have its Chief Minister! As of now, it seems that it may not be a Sena Chief Minister but a Nationalistic Congress Sena Chief Minister! Irony just put its head into a Tiger’s mouth!