Maharashtra Political Drama – Tensions between Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party took a diplomacy turn when nephew of NCP chief Sharad Pawar took a U-turn, withdrew support and resigned from the office of deputy chief minister. It should have been the saddest day for Devendra Fadnavis, who took oath just two days before for the office of Maharashtra chief minister, for the second term. It escalated his resignation too and after much of political drama in Maharashtra for past one or so fortnight the government is now formed, surprisingly the calculation differed for everyone, but people finally, after much wait, knows who is sitting in opposition.
The single largest party BJP with 105 of 152 contested seats in the assembly of 288 with alliance Shiv Sena that grabbed 56 of 124 was a sure unambiguous victory under ideologies of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindutva. The party which was once a junior partner of the alliance now had the role of engine of the Hindutva front. This left Sena into uncertainty of identity politics and so it bailed out of the ties.
The two Hindutva front parties experienced increased friction in relations over the negotiation of chief ministership partnership. As usual, Sena approached NCP and Congress to form government under minimum common program, sacrificing the mandate of voters.
People of Maharashtra understands the three ideologically diverse parties have joined hands out of political necessity and their fear of getting destroyed by BJP will keep them together for the next five years.
However, the Sena knows sooner or later the BJP would overpower it as both are ideologically similar and such circumstances have already occurred in Manipur and Goa in recent years.
Meanwhile, there had been couple of mistakes by the BJP. In his first term, Devendra Fadnavis had cut several mass leaders including Vinod Tawde, Pankaja Munde, Prakash Mehta, Eknath Khadse, Raj Purohit and Chandrashekhar Bawankule. This resulted with reduced numbers of MLAs compared to that of 2014 and halted growth of party in Maharashtra too.
Pre-Election campaigns
The Fadnavis campaign slogan that he will come back again as CM sent a wrong message among the voters. It showed him as arrogant, greedy for power and self-centered. His overconfidence underestimated political ability of Sharad Pawar.
More to all these, the strategy to target Pawar backfired. It sent a message that the old man is now fighting a lonely battle and sympathy went into his favor. As an aftermath, the party that was not sure to win 20 seats managed grabbing 54, and finally became the King maker.
Apart from all these, the Fadnavis government damaged BJP in a big way in past five years by destroying the co-operative network in Maharashtra that is the backbone of rural economy.
The final shot: Sharad Pawar’s speech ahead of Maharashtra assembly election under the pouring rain was a big blow to the saffron.
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