Eyes on Maharashtra Assembly polls : Sparing Shiv Sena the rod
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: Ocotber 07, 2014 -

Like life, nothing is permanent in politics.

No permanent enemies and no permanent foes.

Just as death is universal in life, perhaps the one thing permanent in politics may be said to be the craving or lust for power.

The recent break up between the BJP and Shiv Sena and the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party for the upcoming Assembly election in Maharashtra may be seen along this line.

Not ideology, and certainly not a change of heart. It has more to do with seat arrangements and hence power sharing.

So it is that the BJP has decided to go it alone in the Assembly election condemning the 25 year old alliance with the Shiv Sena.

Same is the case with the fate of the Congress-NCP alliance.

The result of the severance of alliances will be known only when the results start coming in, but a hung Assembly with not a single political party getting the required number of seats is a distinct possibility.

This evidently gives rise to the possibility of like minded parties or former allies to strike an understanding and form post poll alliances.

It may be because of this distinct possibility that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not ventured forth in training his guns on the Shiv Sena and instead relied on targeting the NCP and the Congress.

Respect for the late Bal Thackeray for ‘sparing the Shiv Sena’ is a line that is bound to go down well with some of the functionaries of the Shiv Sena and this may stand the BJP in good stead if the voters decide to go in for a hung Assembly.

How the Shiv Sena respond to any overtures from the BJP is something which only time will tell, but there is nothing to suggest that the pre-poll snap will not be felt in the post poll alliance. It is the same thing with the NCP and the Congress.

Probably still reeling from the mauling that the Congress received at the hands of the BJP in the Lok Sabha election, nothing much has been heard from Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and it interesting to note that the Prime Minister seems to be making all the noises at Maharashtra.

Whether this will translate into votes or not lies in the realm of speculations but Narendra Modi has already rung out the message that he is ready to spread the wings of the BJP.

The energy with which he went hammer and tongs against NCP leader Sharad Pawar and the Congress more than implied that the Prime Minister is intent on making inroads into Maharashtra, which for long had not favoured the BJP.

Hard to say how the dice will roll, but it is nevertheless interesting to see the many possibilities that the election results could throw up.

The Shiv Sena may be spared from the tongue lashing of the BJP, more particularly from the Prime Minister, but this is no guarantee that the Shiv Sena will follow the same dictum.

Makes the run up to the election to the Maharashtra Assembly all that more interesting.

Couple this with the fact that Sharad Pawar and the Gandhis are yet to actively plunge into the electioneering and it would certainly be interesting to see how the Congress and the NCP retaliate and try to win over the people.