By Sushil Kutty
On Tuesday, the last day for filing nominations for the November 20 Maharashtra assembly elections, both the Mahayuti and the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliances were still looking for closure to their seat-sharing blues. Nobody in either grouping could provide clarity to the goings on, the protracted delays plaguing seat-sharing. And while on seat-sharing, the BJP is fighting allegations of “wrong-choice” candidates, accused of giving tickets to “outsiders”.
This, even as the Congress and the Shiv Sena (UBT) were at odds within the MVA and the BJP and the Shiv Sena (Shinde) within the Mahayuti. The ruling Mahayuti alliance was stuck for a decision on seven seats even as late as on the morning of October 29. And which party in the MVA was contesting which seats was not yet finalized. There was no finality on 16 seats.
All the while, INDI-Alliance partner Samajwadi Party waited impatiently for a slice of the seats-pie. SP leader Abu Azmi couldn’t hold his patience and his tongue. He has been threatening that the Samajwadi Party would go it alone and to hell with the INDI-Alliance. A similar dilemma kept Mahayuti partners also wide awake. One got the impression throughout the week that the confusion in both the MVA and the Mahayuti wasn’t about to go away anytime soon.
And then jumped Maulana Sajjad Nomani into the cauldron! Nomani is spokesperson of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, an NGO which often intervenes on behalf of the Muslim community on issues concerning Muslims. One of the Maulana’s goal is to see the back of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Nomani released a video on YouTube in which he asked the MVA to part with 25 assembly seats for Muslim candidates, in return for which he will ensure Muslims would vote en bloc for MVA candidates.
No Muslim spiritual leader had ever sought such a direct in-your face trade-off. Sajjad Nomani even identified the politician to whom he had made the extraordinary offer and counter-demand. But Sajjad Nomani had cut it too fine. Besides, how could he even think that any political party would agree to a seat-sharing arrangement with a Maulana? If Nomani wanted to play spoilsport, he failed miserably.
That being said, somebody wrote of the Maharashtra Assembly election going “off-script”. But was there a script in the first place? The story is that both alliances failed to come to hassle-free seat-sharing arrangements. The Maha Vikas Aghadi was the headline for weeks and Mahayuti alliance partners had to fly to Delhi to sort out hitches.
The MVA partners could not even stick to their 85-85-85 tie. Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party had to wait and wait for its share of the seat-loot, with Abu Azmi blowing hot and cold in turns! This, even as posters of Yogi Adityanath’s ‘Batenge toh Katenge’ rang up a narrative that upset the MVA’s well-laid out plan.
On the other side of the aisle, the Bharatiya Janata Party, revised the number of seats it would contest – from 150 to 146 seats, leaving one seat each for Yuva Swabhiman Party, Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, Republican Party of India (Athavale) and Jan Surajya Shakti Paksha. But two BJP leaders skipped across to the Shiv Sena of Eknath Shinde – BJP spokesperson Shaina NC who will contest from Mumbadevi on the Shinde Sena ticket, and Amol Khatal who will try his luck from Sangamner.
This left 138 seats for the Shiv Sena (Shinde) and NCP (Ajit Pawar) combine. The Shinde Shiv Sena, which had already announced 65 candidates, accommodated Shaina NC of the BJP in line with a deal between the Mahayuti partners to field strong candidates from every constituency. The Shinde Sena also gave two seats out of its share to smaller parties – one to the Jan Suraj Party and one to the Rajashri Shahuprakash Aghadi.
Of the 58 seats left to the NCP faction of Ajit Pawar, the names of 51 candidates had been announced. In the MVA, agreement was reached on 272 of the 288 seats. The Shiv Sena (UBT) will be contesting in 87 seats and the NCP (Sharad Pawar) from 82 seats.
The confusion and the protracted delays indicate the importance of Maharashtra to the country’s politics and the financial clout that maximum city Mumbai brings with it. A lot is at stake for both the alliances and there is also bitterness over the kind of politics played in the state following the split in the Shiv Sena, and the break-up with the BJP, after the 2019 assembly elections.
The BJP has been taking flak for engineering the split in the Shiv Sena, as well as in the NCP. Now, it is payback time and nobody is in a forgiving mood. Into this cauldron, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s ‘batenge toh katenge’ and AIMPLB spokesperson Maulana Sajjad Nomani’s offer of en bloc Muslim votes in return for Muslim seats in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly. Maulana Sajjad Nomani is in a hurry to beat Mehboob Ali’s 2027 deadline though whether he got what he asked for is not known. November will show. (IPA Service)
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