Unease among Mahayuti partners, feedback from the ground, controversies involving leaders of allies, and its own growing political assertion have prompted the BJP to seriously consider going it alone in the coming local body elections in Maharashtra.
According to sources, while top leaders in the state unit have conveyed to the central leadership their keenness to contest the polls alone, the party is open to an alliance with Mahayuti partners Shiv Sena, led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), led by Deputy CM Ajit Pawar in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls.
Earlier this week, CM Devendra Fadnavis and state BJP chief Ravindra Chavan held separate meetings with Union Home Minister Amit Shah on this matter. “Fadnavis and Chavan told Shah that an alliance between Mahayuti partners across the 29 municipal corporations (including the newly formed Jalna and Icchalkaranji) is unlikely. It was also conveyed that the three parties can work together to wrest the BMC from the Shiv Sena (UBT),” a senior BJP leader said on the condition of anonymity.
The BJP’s feedback from its units in places such as Pune, Nagpur, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Kalyan-Dombivli, Nashik, Solapur, and Amravati is that the party should contest alone, with the rationale being that joining forces with allies who have been accused of “public misconduct” in the recent past may dent the party’s prospects. “The corruption and misconduct allegations against ministers of allies will adversely affect the BJP’s chances and hence, we are keen to distance ourselves from the allies for the polls,” a source said.
Recently, Sena minister Sanjay Shirsat and NCP minister Manikrao Kokate found themselves at the centre of controversies. While Shirsat sparked a row after being seen in a video with a “bag full of money”, Kokate ruffled feathers after referring to the government as a “beggar” and was later seen playing cards on his mobile phone in the Assembly.
Apart from this, the leaders of the three ruling allies also share uneasy equations. Fadnavis’s decision to set stringent norms for the appointment of ministers’ aides to “ensure greater accountability and transparency” has not gone down well with Sena ministers.
Marking their territories
The BJP’s strong performance in last year’s Assembly polls, where it won 132 of the Mahayuti’s 235 seats (Sena: 57, NCP: 41), and its aim of “shat pratishat BJP (100% BJP)” are also being seen as reasons for reluctance by its local leaders to forge an alliance for the local body elections.
For instance, the BJP and the Sena are already at loggerheads in the Konkan region, seen to be the latter’s bastion. A war of words broke out on Saturday between Sena minister Uday Samant and BJP’s Nitesh Rane after the former claimed that his party wielded more influence in Sindhudurg and it was up to Shinde to decide if it should retain 60-70% of the seats in the region. Samant’s statement triggered a response from Rane, who dared the Sena to go it alone in the polls.
The unease also exists in Thane, which is seen as Shinde’s backyard, where district-level leaders of both parties are not keen on joining forces. BJP leaders claim that the Deputy CM has not been accommodating and that they have repeatedly raised the issue with their state leadership. In Fadnavis’s hometown of Nagpur, there seems to be a role reversal, with the BJP, seen to be more influential than the Sena and the NCP, being accused of not accommodating allies.
Similarly, in areas such as Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, and other parts of Western Maharashtra — viewed as NCP strongholds — Pawar’s party is seemingly refusing to budge. “We are on a strong footing here and would not like to concede space to allies. Ajit Pawar will work to retain the party’s upper hand in the region. In local body polls, alliances are driven by local equations,” said an NCP insider.
However, Fadnavis has said the three ruling parties will try to forge an alliance in the local body polls and will have “friendly fights” wherever that is not possible.
The long-pending local body polls in the state are due for October-November after the Supreme Court in May directed the state government to complete the election process within four months.
In the last local body elections held for 2,736 seats in 2017, the BJP won 1,099, while the Shiv Sena (then undivided) won 489 seats. The Congress finished third with 439 seats and the NCP won 294 seats. In the BMC polls for 227 seats, the undivided Sena emerged as the single-largest party with 84 seats and the BJP came a close second with 82. The Congress, the NCP, and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) won 31, nine and seven seats respectively.