While the Bharatiya Janata Party’s legislature wing took barely 10 minutes on Wednesday to elect Devendra Fadnavis as their leader of the House, its pre-poll alliance partner – and the more cautious Shiv Sena – will be electing their leader on Thursday. This allows Shiv Sena to buy more time for negotiations on the ‘agreed 50-50’ formula, which has been squarely negated by Fadnavis on Tuesday. In all probability, the matter will only get resolved after talks between Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray. The current five-year term of the Maharashtra Assembly ends on November 9 and the elected representatives have to form the government before this date.
Since the poll results were declared on October 24, the Shiv Sena chief has been claiming that the 50-50 formula on sharing of power was ‘agreed upon’ between himself, Shah and Fadnavis ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. However, Fadnavis on Tuesday denied that the Shiv Sena was ever assured the chief minister’s post for two-and-a-half years as part of the power sharing ‘formula’. He said, “There is no doubt in my mind that I will be the chief minister for five years. There is no plan B or C. There is only plan A, and that will work.”
The BJP won 105 seats in the recent Assembly polls and has been wooing 13 Independents and MLAs from smaller parties to shore up its strength in the 288-member House. The Shiv Sena, which won 56 seats, is pushing for rotational chief ministership and propping Aditya Thackeray as their Chief Ministerial candidate. This idea mooted by Shiv Sena has been rejected by BJP till now. The two parties are now locked in a bitter tug of war over sharing of power in Maharashtra.
While post-poll alliance squabbling is known, in this case, it is the pre-poll alliance which has become a bone of contention. In the last Assembly elections, BJP and Shiv Sena had contested separately. Fadnavis, who is currently the leader of the House, has already dismissed the Shiv Sena’s demand for the top post on a rotational basis. On Tuesday, Shiv Sena second-rung leader Sanjay Raut upped the ante against the BJP, saying his party should not be compelled to look for an alternative to form the next government in Maharashtra and asserted that there are ‘no saints in politics’. ‘We believe in the alliance (with BJP) as we contested the polls jointly. But the BJP should not compel us to commit the sin of looking for an alternative for government formation,’ he said. Raut claimed the two parties had agreed on an ‘equal power’ sharing formula and had even made an announcement on this in Mumbai.
In another development, NCP spokesperson Clyde Crasto has taken a jibe at the ongoing tussle between BJP and Shiv Sena over government formation by sharing a cartoon on social platform with Shiv Sena’s bow and arrow symbol, appearing to hang overhead and pointing directly at BJP’s party symbol, the lotus. Sharing the cartoon, Crasto tweeted in Marathi, “There is a proverb…Hanging over your head.” The Congress too, led by former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Prithviraj Chavan, pitched in that if Shiv Sena would approach them they will take it up to the ‘high command to consider their request’. This move was vehemently opposed by another former Congress Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Ashok Chavan.
The question arises: why is so much time post announcement of results, given to political parties to play with the mandate given by the electorate? To fix this ‘horse-trading’ and speculation in the political market, it is imperative that government formation must be done immediately after the process of the Election Commission is completed.
