And Amit Shah Has the Last Laugh

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For weeks, the suspense was thrilling. Shiv Sena had remained adamant on its unrealistic demand of chief ministership for half the tenure. It was only logical that the BJP would never have agreed to such a condition as BJP was the senior of the allies and had gotten more seats. Also, BJP bigwigs had made announcements in rallies in the presence of Shiv Sena leaders that Devendra Fadnavis would be their chief minister. For Shiv Sena to then allege that the BJP had betrayed them was absurd and cut no ice with the people.

In a matter of days, as if it was lying just underneath the surface ready to burst out, Shiv Sena gave up on its ideology. It began openly courting Congress and NCP, denouncing Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, and in a gust of premature elation Sanjay Raut boasted of how Maharashtra will see a Shiv Sena chief minister. This is where the party lost a lot of credibility. The most ideal move for the party would’ve been to call for new polls.

Ideology is important, and for like-minded parties like the BJP and Shiv Sena to stay together is only logical. But that can’t, and shouldn’t, happen at the cost of self-respect. Shiv Sena, through its mouthpiece Saamana, had relentlessly targeted Prime Minister Modi and his policies for the last two years. Uddhav Thackeray had supported Kanhaiya Kumar in 2016 saying that labelling him an anti-national would be wrong. He was then seen meeting Mamata Banerjee before the 2019 polls as tacit signalling to the BJP that it had its options open. There have been many other instances where Shiv Sena had turned itself into a scornful, self-defeating partner, rather than a productive one. This began from the time Devendra Fadnavis was sworn as the CM. Uddhav, having been the tallest leader of the BJP-SS alliance with a proud legacy backing him up, couldn’t handle not getting the mantle of power.

Today, Shiv Sena lies in tatters. It was being offered the post of the deputy CM and ministerial berths but it rejected all just for the lust of absolute power. There could be a break in the party with some MLAs moving towards the BJP.

NCP too is headed for a fissure right down the middle with Sharad Pawar claiming that he doesn’t back Ajit Pawar supporting the BJP. If that is indeed the case, and Ajit did make the move of his own volition, then the division in the family and party is huge news.

Congress, meanwhile, is more like a spectator. It is the smallest of the four major parties in the state and has also come out of from the whole fiasco looking quite the fool. Its supporters will question the leadership’s politics in first trusting the Shiv Sena and its claims that the alliance will form the government and, more importantly, how it couldn’t foresee a BJP-NCP tie up. This hurts Congress much more than it appears because Maharashtra is one of those rare states where Congress has a strong state ally.

BJP, or rather the Modi-Shah-Fadnavis trio, have played this astonishingly well. Imagine a situation just after polls of BJP aligning with the NCP. This would’ve sent a wave of anger against the party for joining hands with a party whom they’ve always fought against. But, what Amit Shah did was that he let the Shiv Sena play all its cards. Sena explicitly broke off ties with the BJP by exiting the central government. Then it began targeting the BJP for its ‘right-wing’ approach, even going to the extent of defending the anarchy created by ‘students’ at JNU. By displaying an overwhelming desire to attain the chief ministership, it sent the negative message of promoting nepotism and a lust for power over the people’s mandate. Finally, the biggest mistake it made during the entire episode was that it believed that the people would trust its accusations on the BJP over BJP’s rhetoric. Surprisingly, it failed to see that Modi-Shah enjoy terrific credibility and that people would, any day, support the BJP over Shiv Sena.

Shiv Sena had, in the eyes of the people, pushed the BJP to the wall and the BJP had no option but to find a way out. And that it did.

The move of the BJP to ally with the NCP – or a faction of it – is being hailed as masterful politics, politics done in accordance with the mandate of the people. There’s also a widespread narrative that Shiv Sena deserved this after all its drama for power and its betrayal of Hindutva and Balasaheb’s legacy.

People wanted Fadnavis to become the CM again for he had done a great job with infrastructure and water management. He’d run an honest government and ensured that the state saw no terror attacks which were earlier a common sight.

The BJP of today is ruthless. It wants power, and why not? Isn’t that what politics is about? What good can you do if you stay out of power and maintain a high moral ground? People forget the beginning and the process, all they remember is the ending. What happened will only be remembered a few decades from now as Fadnavis becoming the CM and the state of Maharashtra seeing development.

It is no wonder that political parties and the Lutyens fear Shah-Modi. They’re unforgiving in their pursuit to take the BJP to greater heights through both politics and development. This is the ‘cunning-edge’ capability that was lacking in the BJP of yesteryears.

We now hope the BJP is able to prove its majority and then for five years of peace and prosperity to Maharashtra, as an NCP-Congress-Sena alliance would’ve disintegrated into petty bickering and personal motives at the cost of the people.