After West Bengal, BJP turns its sharp dart towards Maharashtra

Amid the battle against coronavirus, the opposition-ruled states are often facing the heat brought by the BJP politics. This is mainly because the ruling BJP has a strong control over the Centre where it can easily haul up states ruled by other parties.

First it was West Bengal that faced the Centre’s ire. This continued until the state was hit by one of the worst cyclones in its history. And now it seems to be the turn of Maharashtra even as the challenge posed by the Centre to the two states has not been of exactly similar nature.

To lull the latest round of ripples created by a series of political developments amid COVID-19 crisis in Maharashtra, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had to call Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray over the phone on Tuesday (May 26). This was necessitated after Rahul’s video-conference with journalists earlier in the day where he answered a question about Maharashtra politics while mainly talking about the COVID-19 crisis.

Soon Rahul’s remarks about Maharashtra’s coalition government were variously interpreted by the media. Most TV channels quoted Rahul as saying that his party was not in the main decision making by Maharashtra’s coalition government. This created doubts about the fate of the Shiv Sena-led coalition ruling the state with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) support besides that of the Congress. The latter has fewer MLAs than the other two partners in the coalition.

Related news: Uddhav Thackeray meets allies as rumours of rift in alliance spread

The alliance of the three parties has been under threat since last year, or the time of its inception. It was cobbled up after fierce wrangling between main sections of these parties on the one side and the BJP on the other.

The saffron party had nearly broken the ranks of NCP MLAs to hoist Devendra Fadnavis briefly as Chief Minister.

These manoeuvres were soon thwarted by NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and a tri-party alliance government with Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minister was sworn in November 2019.

Yet, the Congress had taken quite a few days, or rather over a week or so, to extend support to Uddhav and this gave credence to the belief that Rahul Gandhi had reservations about backing Shiv Sena. More so since Sena has for long been in alliance with the BJP and the two parties fell out only after contesting the last Assembly polls together as partners.

Thus, precariously perched for about six months or so, Thackeray faces a renewed challenge with the massive outbreak of coronavirus in the state.

Maharashtra is the worst among COVID-19 affected states. It faces the blame for “mishandling” the crisis and some of the state BJP leaders called on Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari amid this to demand President’s rule in the state. These moves led to a bitter spat between BJP and Shiv Sena with the latter blaming the former for neglecting Gujarat so much as to invite the wrath of Ahmedabad High Court.

And it has been so only weeks after West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar had gone public against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with accusations of poor governance in times of Corona. Mamata’s government is certainly better placed than that of Uddhav. Yet, Bengal has to go to polls early next year. So Mamata and her Trinamool Congress Party allege this to be the reason for the BJP and the Governor becoming unusually proactive in the state.

Related news: Amid COVID-19, political sweepstakes turn intense in Maharashtra

Amid such wrangling, though in another state, a worried Pawar met the Governor Koshyari on Monday (May 25) and Uddhav Thackeray the next day. Pawar’s move has obviously been meant to dish out a message that as the virtual architect of Maharashtra’s coalition government he continues to be behind the fragile state government through these crisis-ridden times because of the corona scourge.

Following Pawar’s meeting with the Governor, Fadnavis remarked that he was not up for the President’s rule in the state. Yet, he said that the state government would crumble down under the weight of its own contradictions.

To refute that there are any contradictions among Maharashtra’s coalition partners Congress released the video of Rahul Gandhi’s Press conference in the late hours of May 26.

Rahul exhorted the BJP in the video to play the role of a “constructive opposition party” in Maharashtra. Hours before this, the Congress leader also spoke to Thackeray to reassure him of the party continuing an uninterrupted support.

Party insiders say that Rahul told the chief minister that his remarks were misinterpreted by TV channels. Maharashtra PCC president Balasaheb Thorat too denied that there was any rift among coalition partners.

Notwithstanding these assertions, it is a fact that certain senior Maharashtra Congress leaders find themselves to be in the cold since they are too senior to work under 59-year-old Thackeray. For example: Prithviraj Chavan has been Chief Minister of the state and is now 74 years old.

Related news: Pawar blames ‘impatient’ Fadnavis on alliance ‘rift’; Rahul doesn’t help

Those in the know of Maharashtra politics say that the Congress’ senior lot cannot be happy with the new scheme of power in the state politics though Sharad Pawar at 79 not only brought together diverse political forces of the state to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition but is also ever since mentoring it.

As an Opposition party the BJP appears to have hardly reconciled to the loss of power in the crucial state which has big commercial and industrial centres like Mumbai and Pune.

An indication to the deep acrimony between the BJP and state’s new rulers came when the state BJP unit asked it’s party legislators and elected members of the local or municipal bodies to contribute their one day’s emoluments to Prime Minister’s Covid relief fund instead of that of the chief minister.

Thus, amid such vexed politics Uddhav has to always be at his guards to ward off “evil eyes” of both his adversaries and detractors, say those who have for long been closely watching Maharashtra politics.

(The writer is a Delhi-based independent journalist. He tweets at @abidshahjourno)