In the next few days, the state of Maharashtra is going to the polls. Ever since Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena decided to ditch the BJP back in 2019 after contesting the elections as a pre-poll alliance and decided to go with rival parties like the Congress and NCP to form the government, the state’s politics has been in a state of complete flux.
Both the Shiv Sena and the NCP have broken and there are 2 factions of each of them. There are two fronts in the fray – One, the Mahayuti comprising mainly of the BJP, the Shiv Sena (Shinde) faction and the NCP (Ajit Pawar) faction and second, the Maha Vikas Aghadi comprising mainly of the Congress, the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray Sena faction and the NCP (Sharad Pawar) faction. In many assembly seats, the fight is not between the fronts but between the factions of the erstwhile same party. There have been back-and-forth movements of leaders post that so much so it is difficult even for loyal party followers to keep track of who is in which camp. Sample these:
• In the Mankhurd constituency in Mumbai, there is Nawab Malik who is contesting in the NCP ticket and so part of the Mahayuti alliance. However, a candidate, Suresh Patil, is contesting in the same seat in the Shiv Sena ticket, which is also part of the Mahayuti alliance.
• The Mahim seat, which is considered to be the epicentre of Shiv Sena, has been allotted to Shiv Sena from the Mahayuti side and its candidate Sada Sarvankar is contesting from there. However, the BJP instead of supporting Sarvankar who is their alliance candidate, declared that it will support the MNS candidate and Raj Thackeray’s son – Amit Thackeray. MNS is not part of the Mahayuti. Recently, I saw a news that the BJP has decided to support its ally Shiv Sena only!
• In the Mahayuti alliance, the seat sharing is 148 for the BJP, 80 for the Shiv Sena and 53 for the NCP. However, in total 17 BJP candidates have been transferred to Shiv Sena and NCP for contesting on their tickets. So, the allies bargained for a higher number of seats for themselves but finally had to import candidates from the BJP! A popular BJP face on TV – Shaina NC is contesting the Mumbadevi seat in the Shiv Sena ticket, for example.
• In Katol seat, Salil Deshmukh, son of Anil Deshmukh is contesting on behalf of the MVA as NCP (SP) candidate. However, the NCP (AP) faction has fielded a candidate by the name of Anil Deshmukh against him while the BJP also has fielded its candidate Babulal Thakur!
• In the Kolhapur North constituency, the Congress candidate Madhurima Raje withdrew her candidature just a few moments before the deadline to withdraw nominations. The irony is, the Congress had originally nominated another candidate Rajesh Latkar and replaced him with Raje.
• In the Baramati seat which is the traditional stronghold of the Pawar family, the people have to choose between two Pawars – namely Ajit Pawar who was all along responsible for nurturing the constituency locally on behalf of his uncle Sharad Pawar and is a sitting seven-time MLA Vs Yugendra Pawar, nephew of Ajit Pawar who is fighting with the blessings of the patriarch Sharad Pawar and representing his legacy.
A Maha Khichdi is being cooked in the Maha mess called Maharashtra. While we have seen this kind of confusion and mess in Indian politics before, none of it comes close to what is happening in Maharashtra now.
Under these circumstances, one should not fault the electorate if it has developed a deep-rooted cynicism on the nature of the politics being played out in the state. In the recently concluded Presidential elections in the US, it was said that the American public had to choose between the Devil and the Deep Sea. In Maharashtra too, the situation is quite akin to the same.
While it is extremely difficult to predict the winner accurately in any Indian election increasingly, in Maharashtra it is going to be all the more tough, considering there are so many moving parts. But in my opinion, the following points will be critical to look at:
• In this battle of two large fronts where the constituents are a bit disparate, what will matter at the end would be the “Vote Transferring capacity” of the parties to their alliance partners where their candidates are not contesting. While the BJP and the Congress can expect their loyal base to vote for their candidates, their capacity to transfer votes to their allies and vice versa is going to be critical.
• Whether the UBT Shiv Sena and NCP (SP) factions despite not having their original party symbols will be able to get their loyal sympathisers to vote for them. This aspect just showed up as a trailer in the Lok Sabha polls but the final picture will be clearer after this election.
In the past at the national level and other states when we had this sort of Khichdi sarkar taking a toll on stability and governance, the people had opted for a clear verdict in favour of a party or at least a pre-poll alliance. Will the people of Maharashtra put an end to the Khichdi and opt for a stable Poha? Or will we see another hung verdict after which we will see a new alliance called Maha Vikas Yuti coming to power?
Postscript: If only parties like the Shiv Sena and the NCP realised the importance of slogans like Batenge To Katenge or Ek Hai to Safe Hai, the Khichdi would have not been so messy.
Pic Courtesy: The Print
