‘Shinde has become a burden for the BJP, so has Ajit Pawar’

The Assembly elections in Maharashtra are likely to take place in November, with voters set to elect 288 representatives.This election will be interesting in many ways. Between 2019 and 2024, Maharashtra has seen three chief ministers — a first for the state known for its relative political stability.In the same period, two new parties have arrived on the scene — the Shiv Sena led by chief minister Eknath Shinde and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by his deputy Ajit Pawar.While technically Shinde’s Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP are the ‘originals’, declared so by the Election Commission, and it is the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP that should be called ‘new’, the perception on the ground is different.What is also making the November contest compelling is the confusion over caste loyalties. Nobody knows which way the Marathas, who are demanding a piece of the reservation pie, and the OBCs, who do not want the Marathas to get that piece from their cake, will vote.To understand which way these political-caste complexities will make this election swing, TOI+ spoke with Suhas Palshikar, senior political scientist and academic with over 50 years of experience in observing Maharashtra’s political landscape.Palshikar is sure that the political muddle that Maharashtra has landed itself into post-2019 will continue for at least a decade. He is also sure that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — which became the state’s foremost political force around 2014 after decades of hard work — has slid backwards. But he is also sure that none of its rivals — the Congress, the Sena led by Uddhav or Sharad Pawar’s NCP — are strong enough yet to grab the spot conceded by the BJP.Edited excerpts from the interview:Speculation is rife that Shinde’s Sena and the BJP are manoeuvring to push Ajit Pawar to the sidelines, potentially forcing him out of Mahayuti.I’m generally hesitant to comment on Maharashtra, partly because the developments here are less amenable to political analysis and more suited to the writing of a tragic farce. It’s a tragic farce for a state that once prided itself not only on its material development, but also on its democratic credentials.With the ideology of bahujan samaj in the 1950s and ’60s, the state prided itself on its democratic credentials, stability and decency in governance and politics. However, all these elements have suddenly begun to disappear.To answer your question, and I have mentioned this before on multiple occasions, it was a blunder for the BJP to align with Shinde’s Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP. The BJP did manage to ensure that the Uddhav Thackeray-led government fell. And in their larger game plan, they might feel great that they have broken two state-level parties and thus cleared the pitch for themselves. But in the process, the BJP has burdened itself with two allies.Because Eknath Shinde performed relatively well in the last Lok Sabha election, he has become a burden for the BJP. And because Ajit Pawar didn’t, he also has become a burden for the BJP.The BJP waited over 20 years to fulfil its dream of ‘shat pratishat’ BJP. But now, the party has arranged matters in such a way that it cannot achieve this goal. With two partners, it won’t be able to even secure enough seats to contest [forget winning a large enough number of seats to form a ‘shat partishat’ BJP government.]The second part of my answer is that, yes, optically it is bad, particularly Ajit Pawar’s association with the BJP. Until recently, the hardcore middle-class urban voters of the BJP were pleased that the party was criticising the corrupt NCP leadership. While one can be realistic in politics, it is also important to recognise the potential backlash from your support base [when you betray their faith]. ShowQuotesMaharashtra has completed three decades of coalition politics. However, what we are going to see in November is unprecedented. Families have split, parties are divided. Do you think this election, to some extent, can end this chaos?No, I think this election will only lead to the continuation of chaos. I would say that around 2019, Maharashtra politics entered a new phase of chaotic coalitions. While one could trace this chaos back to the 1990s, let’s not go that far into history. Since 2019, there has been this chaotic politics of coalitions, jumping from one climax to another.The moment one starts thinking that things couldn’t get any worse, they just do. As you mentioned, there are splits in families, splits in organisations, and there are factions that are uncertain about where they belong. All this may take another five years to settle down, perhaps more. But it would require far-sighted leadership in at least a couple of parties, along with strong organisational building.Until the mid-90s, the Congress dominated Maharashtra politics. Do you think that the upcoming elections could result in a mandate for a single party?The Congress did very well in the last Lok Sabha election, but that is no guarantee that it will repeat that success in November. Assembly elections are an entirely different ball game.I have already stated that the BJP, as things stand today, cannot regain its predominance. In 2014, it seemed to be on track to become the dominant party in the state. There was a small window between 2014 and 2019 when it appeared like BJP was the most dominant party in the state, both numerically and otherwise. The BJP has since given away that advantage.I don’t think Congress is yet in a position to seize the advantage and become a major political force in the state, let alone replace the BJP. In the current scenario, I don’t believe any party can be as dominant as the BJP was between 2014 and 2019.The only question is which of the six parties will win more seats or whether all of them will have the same share in the new Assembly, give or take a few seats? My sense is that while one party may secure a slightly larger chunk of seats, broadly we are looking at a six-party landscape for the near future. ShowQuotesHow will the rebel factors play out?When there are six parties, it’s effectively as good as saying there are innumerable parties. And while we are focusing on the two coalitions — Maha Vikas Aghadi and Mahayuti — a third front is already taking shape. This third front is being led by independents like Bacchu Kadu from Vidarbha and Raju Shetti from western Maharashtra. In this third front, all kinds of elements will join, including those who don’t have space in the other two coalitions.Then you also have Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA). I can’t resist the temptation of going back to 1995 when as many as 30 or more rebels won elections. Assembly constituencies are small. If there are multi-cornered contests, a candidate who has control over maybe a lakh votes, or even less, can win.How is Maha Vikas Aghadi placed in the run-up to the November elections?They are in trouble on two fronts. One, seat sharing. Two, they don’t seem to have a specific story to tell. The Lok Sabha elections are done and dusted. Now the question is about Maharashtra. What do you tell the voters? What is your vision?You cannot just say that if they [the Mahayuti] have three [welfare] schemes, we have four. You cannot say that if they are boasting about two good roads, we have four projects. There has to be a different narrative that voters can engage with. They have known for some time now that they did not have a story to sell. They could have gotten down to work in May or June itself.Congress is never comfortable with Sharad Pawar’s NCP. With seat-sharing problems, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena is also now at loggerheads with the grand old party. Therefore, I don’t think that the Maha Vikas Aghadi is in a great shape. Not that Mahayuti is doing any better. This is a classic coalition mess. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/dIxXSiaASMg?si=PlJL1yxx_oC9mCAlWhat is at stake here for the BJP and its two partners — Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar?Let us consider the other parties before we get to the BJP.Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP are new to this game. They have been catapulted to the centre stage of politics in Maharashtra because of the events of the past couple of years.For Sharad Pawar, this is probably the most critical moment in his political life because he has risked not only a rift in the family but also the possibility that his entire legacy will be wiped out.Given Aditya Thackeray’s age — and he is Uddhav Sena’s future — he has time. A setback in this election can be overcome if his and his father’s focus remains on building the organisation.And one of the reasons why Uddhav and his Shiv Sena survived, not only after the death of the founder Bal Thackeray but also after the splits, is that he has focused on organisational networks everywhere in Maharashtra. Now, if Aditya Thackeray consolidates that, the party will have a future.The BJP had a large state offered to it on a platter as it rode the Narendra Modi wave to power in Maharashtra. But then it lost it all. And even now, the BJP’s only hope is Modi’s pull. Without him, the BJP is on an extremely weak wicket in the state.The other danger that BJP faces is the internal leadership contests at the state level. The party has already sidelined many young and prominent leaders, thinking that the current leadership is probably the smartest. Now, if they don’t do well, I think they would be in for a very bitter struggle internally.In short, the answer is that the stakes are highest in this election for the BJP and Sharad Pawar’s NCP. ShowQuotesGiven the demands for Maratha and Dhangar reservations, will the ruling party face a backlash?Yes and no. All parties have tried to run away from these issues and no party has clearly articulated any strategy or policy for addressing these demands or the disenchantment among these social sections. With the Maratha reservation demand, the Marathas and OBCs are at loggerheads and then there is disenchantment within the Dhangar community. Maharashtra is sitting on a volcano. I’m not really concerned about who benefits from it and who loses from it.This is not just political fragmentation that we are witnessing, but a deeper social fragmentation, the consequences of which we just don’t know. When communities stand against each other, and with the national atmosphere of Hindu versus Muslim already in play, it adds to the complexity. If we have these additional cross-cutting issues, then I’m strategically and tactically least interested in whether caste animosity would be subdued by religious animosity, whether Hindutva would be an answer to the Maratha versus OBC conflict, or whether the OBC reservation issue would be a solution to Hindutva. These are, I think, secondary questions when looking at the health of society.Unless you have a healthy social atmosphere, there is no point in discussing competitive politics. My sense is that no leadership in the state currently seems to have the ability to truly address these issues and convince the agitators one way or the other. Everyone is trying to reduce tensions, but that is only because they know that such tensions will not help in elections.What we need is someone who will defuse tensions because they believe that such tensions are detrimental to democratic politics. We don’t have leadership of that stature. We don’t have leadership with vision. We don’t have a public sphere today that allows for calm and quiet discussions of these issues. You are either on my side or my enemy. The moment someone starts asking questions — like what Dhangar reservation really means for Dhangars — they will be labeled as anti-Dhangar. If someone questions whether the Maratha reservation demand is justified or useful, he will simply be seen as anti-Maratha. ShowQuotesIs there any leader in Maharashtra who comes to your mind who has the stature and the imagination to resolve these differences and give the state a new direction? Any examples from the past?Examples or names always create controversies, so there is no point in giving specific names.If one is thinking of Maharashtra, a safe example would be Yashwantrao Chavan. But one can also think of the earlier version of Sharad Pawar, who had the capacity and reach to manoeuvre things while keeping an eye on the larger picture.In other states, you find such examples where leaders have made a difference. For instance, down south in Tamil Nadu, we know that the Dravidian intervention, particularly the rise of Annadurai and then Karunanidhi, made a significant impact.In Karnataka, Devaraj Urs also made a difference, though he was a controversial leader at one point and eventually lost steam.If you look at the current leadership, I would be extremely wary of naming anyone as having that potential. Firstly, the structural constraints are such that no leader today can do much. Secondly, the nature of competition is such that no leader can rise above parties and become the leader of the state. These limitations, along with the fact that Maharashtra hasn’t produced a leader worth the name in the last three decades, prohibits us from discussing whether there is anyone around who can take on this role.