On Saturday, Sanjay Raut, Rajya Sabha MP from Shiv Sena (UBT), told media persons, “Why should we not contest independently? In the Lok Sabha election, we contested as INDIA bloc. In the Maharashtra polls, we fought as MVA. In the alliance, we could not fulfil the wishes of all karyakartas, who wanted to contest polls. They should also get a chance to fight.”
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He added, “From Mumbai to Nagpur, everywhere we will fight independently. Whatever happens will happen. We want to test it out once. In municipal corporations, zilla parishads and nagar panchayats, we should fight independently to grow our party.”
Speaking to reporters in Bhandara later in the day, Raut said that his statement about contesting solo was limited to local bodies and it will have “no impact” on the MVA’s future.
Political commentator Abhay Deshpande told ThePrint, “Overall, the INDIA bloc at the Centre seems to be disintegrating, with parties contesting against each other in state polls. The impact is likely to be felt in Maharashtra, too. But, Shiv Sena (UBT) saying that it will contest local body polls will not spell the end of MVA. However, within the alliance, all three parties will now try to build their own individual capital over the next five years.”
Contesting local body polls solo
Analysts as well as political leaders point to how individual parties within alliances have, more often than not, contested local body polls solo in Maharashtra’s political history.
For instance, Congress and the undivided Nationalist Congress Party have almost always contested local body elections on their own. The undivided Shiv Sena and BJP had also contested the 2017 civic elections, including those in key pockets, like Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan Dombivli, independently despite being allies at the Centre and in the state.
Accordingly, the Congress and NCP both have cautious, but different responses to Raut’s statement.
Supriya Sule, Lok Sabha MP from Baramati from the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, defended the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s stand, saying that in the past, her party also used to contest local elections solo, despite being in an alliance with the Congress.
Speaking to media persons, she said, “Municipal corporation and zilla parishad polls are elections of party workers. If we start fighting all elections as per what we (the leadership) feel, then should the party workers only be limited to picking up the carpets (at the rallies)? When will they get justice? This is their election.”
Meanwhile, Congress MLA Vijay Waddettiwar said that his party will speak to Shiv Sena (UBT) Chief Uddhav Thackeray once to request him to contest together. “If they don’t come, our road is clear. We have had a natural alliance with Sharad Pawar’s NCP. We will continue to fight together.”
MVA since poll defeat
In the polls in November, the MVA received a drubbing, collectively winning just 46 of the 288 seats in the Maharashtra assembly. Soon after, all three parties raised doubts on whether the Electronic Voting Machines were tampered with. However, since then, the MVA has hardly put up a united front as the Opposition.
Thackeray’s Sena has been sending mixed signals, with the party openly praising Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for his vision to turn around Naxal-hit Gadchiroli, and the frequent meetings of the Thackerays with Fadnavis, supposedly to discuss issues in the state.
Requesting anonymity, a senior Congress leader told ThePrint, “We are not very clear about what Sena (UBT) is up to. If they want to contest local body polls independently, there is not much we can do about it. But it is giving mixed signals.”
The Congress is likely to internally discuss the situation within the MVA in a meeting with the top leadership in Delhi on 15 January, the leader added.
Over the past two days, Raut and Congress’s Vijay Waddettiwar have also been engaged in a public slugfest over the MVA’s dismal performance in the polls. On Friday, Waddettiwar blamed the delay in seat-sharing talks for the alliance’s loss.
On Saturday, Raut responded, “There is no reason to pay too much attention to what he (Waddettiwar) says. Were we there in Haryana? There was nobody in Haryana with the Congress party, then why did they lose? Why did they lose in J&K? Was Shiv Sena there in West Bengal? Why are you losing across the country?”
Meanwhile, with respect to Sharad Pawar’s NCP, there has been ample speculation about its leaders, especially its MPs, switching sides to Ajit Pawar’s faction. Earlier this month, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s mother, Ashatai Pawar, had called for Sharad and Ajit Pawar’s reunion.
Senior leaders from Sharad Pawar’s NCP, however, have said that there is no such possibility.
The individual capital of MVA parties
For Shiv Sena (UBT), the local body polls, especially elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), will be an attempt at survival after losing the tag of the real Shiv Sena legally as well as in the people’s court to Eknath Shinde’s faction.
“Accordingly, it is shifting its politics more towards Hindutva and warming up to the BJP. But we will have to see whether people accept it or see the party like the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which has flip-flopped on its stances very often,” commentator Deshpande said.
Sanjay Patil, a researcher with Mumbai University’s politics and civics department, also said that Sena (UBT) realised that its core vote bank shifted to the Shinde’s Sena and BJP in the Lok Sabha and assembly polls.
“Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) differ a lot in their functioning styles. The Congress is too democratic and things keep churning before a decision is made. Sena (UBT) has a very autocratic approach. The seat-sharing talks were a mess that all MVA parties were responsible for. It looks like they have realised all this now, and are trying to course correct and keep options open by also raising questions on the INDIA bloc,” he said.
On Saturday, Raut also indirectly blamed the Congress for the INDIA bloc not meeting once since the Lok Sabha elections, and for even failing to name a convenor.
A former Congress MLA, who did not wish to be named, told ThePrint that the party is yet to fully introspect on where it stands post the failure in the state election. “Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole had a death in the family a couple of weeks ago, and the party hasn’t come together to decide its next moves within MVA or otherwise. There is also likely to be a change in state leadership soon.”
A source in the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, meanwhile, said that there is immense pressure from Ajit Pawar’s NCP for its elected representatives to switch over, and party chief Sharad Pawar, who has no intention of aligning with the National Democratic Alliance whatsoever, is trying to hold the party together.
“There is definitely a crisis before the MVA after the state polls. There is a crisis before the individual parties, also. The crisis in Shiv Sena (UBT), though it scored the best among all three parties, is the most severe one as it is an organisational challenge, and an ideological one, too,” Patil said.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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