Maharashtra has been brought under President’s Rule. The State was hurtling towards that, as three weeks after elections results were declared, no party was in a position to form the government. In actual terms the electorate returned a hung Assembly as no party obtained a majority, but the pre-poll alliance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (105 seats) and the Shiv Sena (56 seats) had been in a comfortable position to take over the reins in the State, until the regional party demanded a power sharing agreement under which its MLA would be chief minister for two and a half years. BJP turned this down and the adamant stand taken by the SS on this issue claiming this had been agreed upon earlier, splintered an alliance – possibly irrrevocably – that had been in place for over a quarter of a century.
But the political drama that has been playing out in Mumbai during the last few days, had twists that even Bollywood’s best screen writers may have shied away from introducing in their scripts. On Monday afternoon, for the first time in Mumbai, a Thackeray came close to donning the mantle of chief minister, as the most unlikely of alliances – Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress – appeared to be on the threshold of a major realignment of forces and coming together on the same platform. The Shiv Sena withdrew from the National Democratic Alliance – its only minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet resigning – but by evening the possibility of the SS, NCP and Congress government was shattered, as the last named sought more time to arrive at a decision of supporting the first named.
Under the circumstances, President’s Rule is perhaps the best option in the State as whatever alliances would have been built would be fragile and could easily crumble under their own weight. There is nothing that the Congress and the NCP could have in common with the Shiv Sena. They have been on the opposite side of issues, and scrapping political rivals, which would make their coming together a very brittle combination built solely on the desire to come to power. It actually leads one to wonder whether the parties that were planning to come together were doing so to give Maharashtra a government or to keep themselves relevant in the State.
On the other hand, the BJP and the SS have been natural allies, sharing common views on issues, and have been in a marriage of likeminded parties for decades. In this respect, the Shiv Sena has taken a major gamble in untying the knots that had bound them to the BJP. There had been a fallout between the two parties in 2014, and they had contested the elections separately, but in 2019 they had returned to the same platform. Today, 20 days after the elections results were declared, SS has sundered that association over the chief minister’s post, and whether there can be a rapprochment between the parties after this is an intriguing question that will not be easy to answer.
The President’s Rule that has been imposed in the State is, however, merely a temporary measure. The political parties now get time to form alliances and have a stab at government formation, failing which Maharashtra could be plunged into elections again. This gives the electorate the opportunity to vote in a new party or combination to form the government. Fresh polls would not be what the political parties would desire – especially not SS, Congress and NCP. The sena, in particular, would find it difficult to explain to the electorate why there was no course correction on its part on the chief minister’s position, when the situation appeared to be sliding out of their hands. But it hasn’t ended. As mentioned earlier, if this were a Bollywood script, the final letters on the screen would read – picture abhi baki hai (the film isn’t over).
