New Delhi, November 23
Dramatic happenings in Mumbai on Saturday morning are proof that BJP’s master strategist Amit Shah was all the while silently working on his Maharashtra plan even as the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress carried on with the endless optics of holding meetings.
The BJP could not have afforded to lose Maharashtra and Shah struck and how. The NDA may have lost an ally in the Shiv Sena today gained a new ally.
No one could have envisaged a split in the NCP with its very own master strategist Sharad Pawar around. Whether his nephew Ajit Pawar’s decision was prompted by his personal reasons–his “involvement in irrigation scam”–or some other family reason is a point of debate.
But the way the BJP, which on Friday said the strange bedfellows–the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress–will not be able to last beyond “six to eight months”, swooped in swiftly early on Saturday morning to form the government with a “strange bedfellow” is a confirmation of the old adage that politics is the art of the impossible.
The fact is the saffron party would have much more to worry if the three “strange bedfellows” had actually managed to pull through and sustain for full five years in the politically important Maharashtra that sends the second largest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha (48) after Uttar Pradesh (80).
Observers believe the BJP would have had much to worry, and not just in Maharashtra but also where elections are due soon. The idea could have acted as a template for opposition for the future.
Analysts say had it not been for the NCP and Congress turncoats, the BJP would have won much less.
Then the second aspect—the “Hindutva” base of both the Sena and the BJP. The Congress and the NCP aligning with the Sena may have worked in the favour of the two parties looking for ways to “improve prospects among those in the majority community who favour the BJP”.
There is much speculation on what transpired between Pawar’s meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and whether he was actually behind the dramatic turn of events and the early-morning coup or actually there is a split in the NCP or his family and he has been stabbed in the back by his nephew.
