ust what happened in Maharashtra? Was it political opportunism or was it political adventurism? It is such a fine line that differentiates the two words, that using one or the other to describe what occurred in Maharashtra is confusing to say the least, as confounding as the developments in the neighbouring State, over a long month of, oh well, how about playing safe and describing it as political volatility. It all happened with speed, events cascaded over each other, decisions were taken and just when everyone thought that the matter had been settled, they were rescinded. You went to sleep safe in the knowledge of what was going to happen, only to wake up to something new and go to bed that night having seen another development that upturned all others.

A week ago in a dawn coup Bharatiya Janata Party appeared to have pulled the rug from under the Maha Vikas Aghadi of Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress. Some 80 hours later, Devendra Fadnavis who had taken oath as chief minister of Maharashtra resigned as the BJP did not have the numbers. A couple of hours earlier, his deputy Ajit Pawar had resigned and had returned to the NCP fold, and that is what led to the collapse of the Fadnavis government. There is today a Shiv Sena led government in Maharashtra, with Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister, and NCP and Congress as alliance partners.

Thackeray may be the chief minister, but wily old Sharad Pawar, who has battled in and for Maharashtra over the decades, has emerged as the fulcrum around which the aghadi in the State will function. He will possibly hold the remote control that will keep this formation in power until such time as he presses the stop button. In past Shiv Sena-led governments, that privilege – if it can so be termed – lay with Bal Thackeray, the father of the new chief minister. But Maharashtra politics has mutated so much that Shiv Sena, which had dethroned Congress from Mantralaya – the first non-Congress chief minister of Maharashtra was Shiv Sena’s Manohar Joshi – is now in power solely because the Congress has joined the alliance as a junior partner. The parties have sunk their differences, and this once appeared to be an impossible task. How’s that for opportunism? 

So, was this opportunism or was this adventurism of the political kind in Maharashtra? If this was a game of chess, grandmasters of the game would possibly have guessed the outcome early on as they calculated moves ahead, but even the most seasoned of politicians and political observers were stretched to predict how this game of political chess in Maharashtra was going to end. Every move that the player made and called out check, was outsmarted by the opponent who moved the chess pieces so adroitly that a loss for the aghadi was converted into a victory and the BJP’s morning coup of getting a chief minister elected was nullified. There was no queen, but the king was calling the moves instead of defending his position.

And so, when Sharad Pawar reportedly shot out that one-liner – this is not Goa – and went on to warn that ‘if something wrong is done here, we will teach people a lesson’, he would have been referring to the 2017 elections. In this election Congress, despite being the single-largest party was ignored when it came to government formation and BJP, which had won far fewer seats was invited to form the government. Ironically, in Maharashtra, it is BJP that is the single-largest party and is now sitting in the opposition, but, and here lies the catch: in Maharashtra, BJP was given first chance to form the government, and only after it declined was Shiv Sena invited, and when it too did not meet the deadline given to proffer letters of support, the NCP was invited, following which President’s Rule was promulgated. In Goa, this chance was never given. 

It was after this that the real game of chess got started in Maharashtra, a game that could never have been played in this our State, as Goa does not have a Sharad Pawar and Goa does not have the clout that Maharashtra has, or reasons why political parties will spend sleepless nights trying to gain control of the government. Maharashtra is politically and economically important to any government at the Centre. It is a large State that sends 48 members to the Lok Sabha, its State capital Mumbai is the financial capital of the country, it is industrially well developed and the State plays an influential role in various sectors. Having the State in its grip is important for the party that is in government at the Centre. Goa, on the other hand, has just two MPs, its economy hangs in balance with mining operations at a standstill and tourism making attempts to recover lost ground, and it has limited political clout in New Delhi.

So yes, in Goa political parties can get away with turning around mandates, but it is not so easy when this happens in a State like Maharashtra. When it happens in Goa the news makes it to the inside pages of newspapers, and the second or third lead on news channels. When it happens in Maharashtra it is splashed on the front pages of all newspapers across the country, with the most creative of headlines, and television channels debate it round the clock, taking brief recesses to give other news. In that respect, Sharad Pawar is absolutely right, as this can happen in Goa, but not in Maharashtra. In Goa events can get obfuscated, in Maharashtra they get amplified, and under the glare of the television cameras they get stripped of all pretensions and are scrutinised under the most power of microscopes – the social media that today gets to the core of the issue faster than the mainstream media. 

Maharashtra has a new government today. What remains is to see whether this government that brings parties espousing different ideals and causes can stay in power despite the weak foundation it has been built upon. The recent past has shown that anything can happen in that State, so what’s the guarantee that this government built only on the desire to keep the BJP out can stay to see a full term? There is no such guarantee. And before too long, there could be another game of political chess to be played in Mumbai, that will keep us all awake.