Maharashtra crisis shows zebras can’t sleep with lions in political jungle

When Uddhav Thackeray had gone against Maharashtra’s popular mandate in the 2019 Assembly elections, cheated on its senior pre-poll partner BJP, and accepted the chief minister’s post, he unwittingly invited Sharad Pawar to sign Shiv Sena’s death warrant.

The wily NCP chief happily obliged.

Keeping Uddhav and his son Aditya at the forefront, Pawar made Shiv Sena make a thousand unthinkable compromises on its core Hindutva ideology, publicly disgrace Bal Thackeray’s legacy, and make itself unelectable in future elections. It was like putting shiny varnish on a wooden artefact but hollowing it out from inside.

Uddhav presided over the lynching of Palghar sadhus, descent of a section of Mumbai Police into thuggery, state administration’s dubious role in the handling of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s mysterious death, hounding of Kangana Ranaut, arrests from Arnab Goswami to Ketaki Chitale, and outlawing public reciting of Hanuman Chalisa while initiating no action against mosque loudspeakers.

Sena leaders who have grown up on Balasaheb’s ideology knew that the ground was slipping from under their feet. The party’s core voters were first bewildered and then angry. Leaders like Eknath Shinde, who is now leading the rebellion, knew that going back to the electorate would soon be impossible.

While Uddhav and Aditya got deeply unpopular, who was taking these law and order decisions while controlling the state home department? Pawar’s NCP, of course.

In some more time, Pawar would ensure an electoral wipeout of Shiv Sena. With the Congress nearly irrelevant in Maharashtra politics, who would be left in the centrestage with the BJP? NCP, of course. Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule’s political future would look up too if NCP’s might rise in the state.

Uddhav lacks the foresight to realise such political alliances are doomed to fail, and it often results in the rise of the smarter partner at the cost of the other.

The Congress, for instance, could never recover from its 49-day alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party in 2013 when it lent AAP outside support. For two consecutive terms after that, the Congress has not had a single MLA in a state it ruled for 15 years at a stretch.

The BJP’s bold experiment in 2014 with an ideologically opposite party, PDP, backfired. The government could not complete its term. PDP’s credibility waned in its Islamist base. The BJP ultimately prevailed, revoked Kashmir’s special status under Article 370, and left the PDP limping and considerably weaker.

The 2015 Bihar patchwork of bitter rivals Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav failed too after a series of bitter flashpoints.

In 1993, for instance, BSP founder Kanshi Ram teamed up with his rival Mulayam Singh Yadav and came to power in Uttar Pradesh with the slogan: “Mile, Mulayam Kanshi Ram/ Hawa ho gaye Jai Shri Ram.” That unnatural alliance was short-lived too.

Similarly, the Left and the BJP coming together at the Centre in 1989 with other parties to form a Third Front failed within 11 months.

For all its fakery, charade and intrigue, politics is an interplay of ideology and promises. The voter chooses a party because he or she wishes to believe in its stated ideals, stand on issues. Even if it wishes, a party cannot escape that untold contract with its voters. The greatest gravitational pulls of power or money cannot overturn that accountability.

That is what Uddhav and Aditya Thackeray forgot. Their chief patrons are not Bandra liberals, Muslim radicals, or the jokes of Bollywood. Their chief patrons are the Marathi manoos who swear by Hindutva and Maharashtra’s glory, and keep photos of Shivaji Maharaj, Balasaheb and Veer Savarkar proudly in the house.

Eknath Shinde may have saved the party from the father and son’s sins.

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