Survival games

Survival games

For all his roaring Uddhav Thackeray cannot play big brother to BJP
A year after Shiv Sena decided to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra assembly elections alone, the party appears to be rethinking its stance. Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, chairing a meeting of party MPs, reportedly said that he wants ‘a sambandh with Narendrabhai’, a personal bond, and that he is willing to reconsider a pre-poll alliance if BJP comes up with an honorable proposal. This indicates a willingness to treat the BJPSena relationship like that of a family, where differences are bound to crop up but ways are found to resolve them and move forward.

Coming after Sena’s steady stream of jibes at BJP in recent times, the pragmatic tone implies a sober assessment of reality. Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha seats, the largest number after UP. This makes the state crucial for BJP-led NDA to retain power at the Centre. BJP, therefore, has a clear interest in allying with Sena as this would be its best bet to counter a Congress-NCP alliance. Sena, on the other hand, is facing an existential crisis as its own right-wing vote base is being swallowed by BJP and its Marathi plank no longer has the traction it used to. To turn things around, Sena would need to change its messaging considerably.

This may be possible under Uddhav who sports a less aggressive image than his father Bal Thackeray. But at present, both BJP and Sena need to find a solution to the anti-incumbency they face in Maharashtra and at the Centre, particularly in the context of agrarian distress and lack of jobs. Sticking together is the best option for both parties. True, this will be an uneasy alliance as Sena and BJP have gone from being natural allies to competing allies. But they need to grin and bear each other for their immediate electoral benefit.

This, of course, would necessitate an adjustment to the alliance itself. Sena continues to see itself as the big brother in Maharashtra, leaving Delhi to BJP. But BJP’s performance in the last Maharashtra assembly polls where it won 122 seats to Sena’s 63 flies in the face of such assumptions. Uddhav has no choice but to be flexible and go for an equitable seat-sharing arrangement. Otherwise, in going alone he will be faced with the prospect of total decimation at the hands of both BJP and the prospective Congress-NCP combine.