MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena may have announced to go solo in the next Assembly and general elections, but the big question is whether it will bite the bullet or not. The immediate political fallout would have been the Sena quitting the Maharashtra government led by Devendra Fadnavis. But, the party is unlikely to do so.
BJP sources said senior party leaders in Delhi were upset with the announcement and asked Fadnavis to send out a ‘proper’ message to the Sena. The Maharashtra chief minister, who was in Davos attending the World Economic Forum, took the Sena posturing lightly. Fadnavis said he was confident of not just completing five years in office but also winning a second term.
If the party wants to regain credibility, it will have to quit the government, say political observers. But the Sena leadership doesn’t seem to be in a mood to take any such advice. Senior party leader and Industries Minister Subhash Desai made it clear that the announcement doesn’t mean the party will quit the government immediately. “When the alliance was severed in 2014 for the first time, it was done at a short notice. We were unprepared. But, we have (now) made the announcement one-and-a-half years in advance. We don’t want to keep anyone in dark,” he said.
“Even when we joined the government in 2015, we did it for the betterment of the state and we have also made it clear that we should not quit it unless that serves the state in terms of stability and a better administration.”
There is another side of the decision. Some Sena MPs, especially from Vidarbha, feel the decision to contest solo may adversely affect their poll prospects.
The Sena is strong in Konkan region, especially Mumbai and Thane. It may reap benefit from its decision to go solo in these areas. But for the rest of Maharashtra — the North and the West, and Marathwada and Vidarbha — the BJP has made good inroads and both the parties will suffer, a Sena MP said. “They (the BJP) need our support during the Assembly polls. But, we need them for the Lok Sabha polls.”
Another Sena leader feels by making the announcement so early, the party has given ample time to the BJP for poll preparations. “Everybody knows that the alliance is difficult. But many believed that there would be an alliance in the parliamentary polls and that the Assembly polls would be contested separately like last time. But, with the announcement, we have opened up our cards,” the leader said. “If the Congress and the NCP take cue and bury their differences, we will be in a big trouble.”
The Sena had for the first time contested the Assembly polls independently in 2014. It won 63 seats and bagged 19 per cent votes. The BJP won almost double the number of seats, but its vote share was just 1.5 times that of the Sena. But surprisingly, the party has focused only on Mumbai and ignored rest of the state.
Another litmus test for the party will be the cabinet expansion. The BJP plans to induct former CM Narayan Rane, which is certain to annoy the Sena. However, Sena spokesperson Neelam Gorhe had earlier said, “Rane’s induction is not a major issue for us.” That may be interpreted as the Sena not wanting to quit the government and lose the chance to get more of its leaders elected to the legislative council and the Rajya Sabha.