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The battle for the Lok Sabha in Maharashtra, considered the most hard-fought in these polls, is being seen only as the percussor to the all-out war of the Assembly elections, to be held in less than six months after the General Elections.
The horizon being gazed at by political parties in Maharashtra is the more local war for the State, which began after the last Assembly polls in 2019, when the then-united Shiv Sena walked out of the Mahayuthi or NDA in the State and formed the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government with the unlikely allies — the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
That unlikely combination of allies in the MVA redrew the political geography of the State most dramatically, upending support bases and creating grudge matches that are yet to reach their conclusion.
Two years ago, current Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, along with a large swathe of Shiv Sena MLAs and MPs split the party and brought down the MVA government. He got the chief minister’s chair, the party symbol of bow and arrow, and the party name of Shiv Sena (Balasaheb Thackeray).
A year before the General Elections, current Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar also split his party, the NCP, rebelling against his uncle and senior leader Sharad Pawar. With the party symbol going to the Ajit Pawar faction, the senior Pawar is in the same situation as 1999 when he launched the NCP — a new party and symbol just weeks before a new set of elections.
These splits have led to hard bargaining within alliances for shares of Lok Sabha seats.
In the MVA, the maximum number of seats were bagged by Shiv Sena (UBT), led by Uddhav Thackeray, which will be contesting 21 seats, with the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar) contesting on 10, and the Congress with 17 seats.
The seat sharing was not without its pains, with Congress giving up its claim on Sangli, for Shiv Sena (UBT) and Bhiwandi for NCP (Sharad Pawar). This hard bargaining is clearly aimed at the extrapolation of claims when it comes to Assembly seats later.
Again, despite giving in, Congress is not without skin in the game in Sangli, as Vishal Patil, grandson of former chief minister Vasantdada Patil, whose case was advocated by senior Congress leaders of the area for Sangli, is standing as a rebel candidate on the seat. Shiv Sena (UBT) has fielded the two-time winner of “Maharashtra Kesari” wrestling title Chandrahar Patil in Sangli.
In the Mahayuthi, the BJP is fighting on 28 seats, the NCP (Ajit Pawar) on four, the Rashtriya Samaj Party supported by NCP (Ajit Pawar) at one, and the surprise in the pack, the Shiv Sena (Shinde) at 15 seats. Mr Shinde’s hard bargaining when no one expected to see him get into double digits in the share, is again aimed at better claims on seats come Assembly polls.
When it came to Thane especially, the bargaining was tough, as Mr Shinde was adamant that the seat, wrested within the original Shiv Sena-BJP Mahayuthi by his mentor Anand Dighe in the past should accrue to his party.
Both factions of the Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar-led NCP have fought for and got these shares not just to express claims later, but also to make sure that the new party symbols to Shiv Sena (UBT), the flaming torch, and NCP (Sharad Pawar), man blowing “turha” or traditional trumpet, are by then disseminated in these areas right on time for Assembly polls.
On the chess board of Maharashtra politics, where the game is moving at lightning speed, the Lok Sabha is just a semi final. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, fighting for his third tenure, is a big factor that can obscure a lot of local grudges and equations. For the final reckoning of the events let loose in 2019, however, the Assembly polls will have to be awaited, with the Lok Sabha polls an interregnum to put the set pieces in place.
