NEW DELHI: In Maharashtra, it all boils down to a fight among four chief ministers, the incumbent who had to resign and the rest hopefuls. Prithviraj Chavan, Uddhav Thackeray, Ajit Pawar and the not-so-openly declared, Nitin Gadkari.
The tussle among these four, their declared or undeclared ambitions for the CM’s chair led to the break-up of two decades-old alliances in Maharashtra—that of the Congress and NCP and Shiv Sena-BJP. And, it is the political equations of these four that will determine who will go with whom, post-elections, if a bigger alliance is required to form a government after October 19.
Of these four, no one is really betting on Congress’ Chavan at the moment, though he is determined to lead the Congress campaign. The toss-up is limited to Uddhav’s ability to swing the Sena and convince the non-Sena voters with his soft image without the BJP and smaller caste-affiliated parties propping him up; Ajit Pawar’s ability to attract much more than the NCP’s Maratha voters and overcoming the personal allegations of taint and graft against him; and Gadkari’s quiet play, provided his party rides into victory on the wave of an US-return triumphant Narendra Modi.
In such a fractured four-cornered fight, can any of the parties expect to reach the magic number on its own? Hurt and cornered, Chavan would like everyone to believe that his erstwhile ally the Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar’s party NCP is going it alone in the elections, only to tie-up with the BJP post-poll. That’s why he says, “They broke the 15-year-old alliance with Congress” just an hour after the Sena-BJP filed for divorce. It is another matter that Pawar Sr’s nephew, Ajit Pawar, who was Chavan’s Deputy CM till they parted ways, was virtually not on talking terms with the CM.
Sharad Pawar himself, right after the UPA debacle, had offered to helm the Maharashtra campaign for the ruling Congress and NCP, provided Prithviraj Chavan was replaced by a CM of his choice. The Congress top-brass chickened out.
Rahul Gandhi had plans of revamping the party from the grass-root, without the NCP baggage. Congress President Sonia Gandhi remained nonplussed, hit by the parliamentary debacle. So simply, Chavan refused to make way.
According to NCP sources, whether the party goes with BJP or Sena or anyone for that matter “will entirely depend on the results—how can we speculate on it now.” However, analysts feel that for regional parties, like NCP, there’s no baggage and Pawar would have no problem supporting the candidature of his friend Gadkari. His nephew, however, has a better underlying equation with the Sena.
For the Sena and the NCP, the subterranean campaign would be to stall the “outsiders’’ (BJP led by two Gujarati leaders) from taking over Maharashtra—possibly to divide the state, curve out Vidhrabha, declare Mumbai as a Union Territory and “complete Morarji Desai’s unfinished agenda”.
The NCP is not against Vidharbha, but it is not averse to invoking the Marathi ego to win a few extra seats. As for the BJP, it has only to gain banking on the Modi card and a new local leadership which is known for dedicated political work and has no past baggage. For the lonely Congress, which will now have to fight the election under President’s Rule, there are not many hand holders. A possible tie-up with the Samajwadi Party also soured, not to mention the lack of funds that the local leaders are cribbing about.