By Tirthankar Mitra
It would be months before 2023 ends yet Maharashtra has witnessed BJP splitting Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the past six months. In both the cases, the saffron camp while it appears to be poised for a hat-trick has exploited intra-party differences in these regional mainstream outfits following a well scripted game plan with the blessings of the national leadership.
Sharad Pawar’s swipe at Prime Minister, Narendra Modi is a pointer to the saffron camp’s think tank being at work in this upheaval of political fortune. In an unmistakable swipe at Modi, he thanked the Prime Minister for taking the MLAs just days after accusing NCP of corruption and in doing so “He has freed themselves of the allegations”.
Unknowingly Pawar has echoed a state of affairs Trinamool Congress leadership never fails cry itself hoarse. While the NCP finds its ranks thinned by desertions, several TMC leaders especially the party de facto number two Abhishek Banerjee is under scanner of central probe agencies while BJP leader and leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari who switched loyalty from TMC despite being named in a CBI charge sheet, has no such encumbrances.
The roots of splitting a party in this country can be traced back to Socialists leaving Congress or the 1964 split in the undivided Communist Party though the parting of ways on both occasions were marked by ideological differences as was break up in 1969 in Congress. The infamous “Aya Ram, Gaya Ram” came in its wake as in several others which were triggered by a hankering for the throne in the states.
Clearly the BJP is on an expansion mode and being a dominant partner in the ruling dispensation in the state has given it an edge which the NCP does not enjoy. The BJP had long been eyeing the differences in the NCP camp where party chief Sharad Pawar has been sidelining his nephew Ajit Pawar.
Elevation of Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule to party chief’s post ignoring the claim of Pawar junior appears to be the moment of truth for the latter. Though Ajit Pawar’s elevation in the place of his cousin would have no less an act of continuance of dynastic rule junior Pawar’s career in NCP turned turtle.
The backlash of Sule’s elevation was Ajit Pawar switching his loyalty to the saffron camp and being anointed deputy chief minister of Maharashtra. Inarguably, it is a back to the wall political battle for the NCP now.
Just as it had emerged triumphant splitting Shiv Sena, breaking the NCP was a repeat act for the BJP. A long way has been travelled by BJP in Maharashtra since 2014 when it bagged 122 Assembly constituencies out of 288, the BJP- Shiv Sena coalition headed by Devendra Fadnavis was formed.
The BJP found itself taken by surprise in 2019 when it’s alliance partner Shiv Sena joined hands with Congress while there were 105 MLAs with the saffron camp. Maha Vikas Agadi (MVA) was dislodged after two and a half years when 40 rebel Sena legislators and 10 independent MLAs walked out of it.
Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, BJP and Shiv Sena have announced to contest it in alliance. Searching for the provocation of splitting the NCP, one finds that BJP is on the lookout for a long term political dividend.
The NCP and it’s chieftain Sharad Pawar is a vital cog in the yet to crystallize Opposition alliance. The prestige which was extended to Pawar as the NCP chief as one of the leading lights of the Opposition camp at Patna is likely to dip and dim when these leaders next meet aiming to remove the BJP-led NDA government.
For Sharad Pawar would no longer arrive in it as a powerful Opposition leader but one whose party MLAs ranks have been depleted by defection. From an influential leader he has been reduced to one who is unable to keep his house in order.
But the BJP leadership is looking forward to reaping political dividends nearer home. Come 2024 Lok Sabha polls, it aims to make significant inroads in western Maharashtra, a NCP bastion. Three parliamentary constituencies in western Maharashtra were in the NCP’s bag post 2019 elections. The NCP’s total tally of seats in this election was four, a clear pointer to its support base in western Maharashtra.
BJP won 11 seats in 2019 elections from this area. With two third of NCP MLAs led by Ajit Pawar in its fold, the BJP is looking forward to expending it’s presence not only in the sugar belt of western Maharashtra together with Marathwada but in parts of northern Maharashtra too. (IPA Service)
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