Sena-BJP fallout has been brewing for three years
The Shiv Sena’s announcement on Tuesday to end its alliance with the BJP for the Lok Sabha and Maharashtra assembly and elections next year has its genesis in the bitter tug-ofwar between the two parties for the past over three years.
Two factors seemingly acted as catalysts to precipitate the split in the alliance — the first being the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) quest to maintain its big-brother status and the second to politically capitalise on the popularity wave of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
BJP leaders familiar with relations between the two parties say Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has nursed a grudge against the BJP’s leadership, primarily because of the latter’s push to expand its footprint in the state.
The current BJP leadership is different from those in the past like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani who stitched up an alliance with Sena founder Bal Thackeray accepting the Maharashtra-based party’s big brother status in assembly elections in return for more seats in the Lok Sabha polls.
The Sena and the BJP sparred over seat distribution ahead of the 2009 Lok Sabha election also, but timely intervention by late BJP leader Gopinath Munde salvaged the alliance.
The BJP was hurt with what party leaders believe was Sena’s ‘betrayal’ in 2007 and the 2012 presidential elections, when it chose to back Congress candidates Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee over NDA nominees.
The appointment of Nagpur politician Nitin Gadkari as BJP president in January 2010 was another turning point. Gadkari was considered close to Uddhav’s estranged cousin and MNS chief Raj Thackeray, but he could not take on the Sena beyond a point. The BJP still needed the Sena.
But 2014 was different. Modi came on to the national political centrestage along with Amit Shah and immediately hit the roads to realise their ambitions of expanding the BJP beyond its traditional strongholds.
Shah took over as BJP president in July 2014 ahead of the Maharashtra assembly elections in October that year. A loud and clear message was sent to Sena that the previous seat sharing arrangement — 171 for Sena and 117 for BJP — would not be accepted. The BJP wanted an equal share with biggest party getting the CM’s post, but Sena refused. They parted ways.
However, when the BJP emerged as the single largest party with 122 seats but fell short of a majority, the two estranged parties came together to form the government and the BJP, for the first time, got the CM’s post. The Sena’s demand for the deputy CM post was turned down.
In all these years, Sena kept asking for the deputy CM’s post in Maharashtra, important portfolios in the Maharashtra government and a cabinet rank ministry in Delhi. With the BJP making inroads in the Sena’s bastion, Uddhav Thackeray was getting jittery about the future of his own party. He needed to flex his muscle. He did that On Tuesday.
NEW DELHI: