Now, it’s enemies becoming friends!

the aid of the two members of the All India Majlis-e-ittehad –e-musimeen (AIMIM) but now those very members, who may not even be affected by the farmers votes, were making common cause with the Congress and the NCP. So was the Samajwadi Party and other smaller parties.

The fact that they could all come together in a jiffy and undertake a yatra in the scorching heat of Vidarbha and Marathwada says much about what really is driving them into each other’s arms – the Bharatiya Janata Party.

People were tickled pink to see former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and his ex-deputy Ajit Pawar cheek by jowl with each other throughout the yatra.

They have not yet forgotten that Ajit had labelled Chavan as the “worst chief minister Maharashtra has had’ weeks before the 2014 assembly polls and Chavan too was no fan of the Pawars.

Yet they seemed to have forgotten their animosity towards each other and , if differences still exist, have been able to put them on hold.

But that has not been all – it was Uddhav who first raised the issue of loan waivers and the Shiv Sena could not be seen as indifferent to the yatra.

While it could not have been officially part of the campaign, the party evolved its own strategy by having individual MLAS meet the yatra in their constituencies and be seen by farmers as sympathetic to their cause. That has left only the BJP looking heartless.

It is an existentialist crisis for all the parties, including the Shiv Sena, but there are some issues, particularly for the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, who cannot be seen making common cause with the Sena. So the manner in which they handled their yatra is a precursor to what may evolve in the future – all other parties could come together openly but the Shiv Sena will be covertly supported from behind the scenes.

Even if they become friends again, the Shiv Sena and the BJP would prefer to go their separate ways as fighting singly gets them more seats indvidually than they can win in an alliance. The reverse is true of the Congress and the NCP and the other parties simply do not stand a chance if they do not come to an accommodation with the bigger parties.

Fadnavis, then, has his task cut out for him.