Despite the crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, the ruling partners are engaged in a verbal duel and one-upmanship, instead of getting their act together to take on the Mahayuti (comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Shiv Sena, the Republican Party of India, the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana and the Rashtriya Samaj Party) in the coming Assembly elections.
A section of the Congress and NCP leaders has hinted at going solo in the Assembly polls. However, senior leaders are quick to intervene, saying the alliance will continue, especially at a time when both parties are lagging in a record 240 of the 288 Assembly constituencies. The leaders say the alliance is vital to regain lost ground, especially among traditional vote banks, including various backward classes. More, the Congress-NCP combine fears division of votes will be benefit the Mahayuti by luring youth and those who voted for the National Democratic Alliance in the Lok Sabha polls.
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Though both parties pressed for introspection after the Lok Sabha debacle, this soon gave way to a blame game. NCP chief Sharad Pawar squarely blamed the Congress for his party's defeat. He said the Congress failed to tackle corruption, as well as various scams.
Praful Patel, another NCP leader and former Union minister, said, "The Congress did not take other alliance partners into confidence. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh simply vanished from the scene. There was confusion among the people on the Congress's prime ministerial candidate... During the last five years, the Congress ignored political dialogue and we had to pay the price."
Congress leaders such as Milind Deora and Priya Dutt, who lost to Mahayuti nominees in Mumbai, also criticised the party leadership. Worse, Congress legislators from Mumbai claimed the weak leadership, high inflation and scandals led to the party's washout in the general elections. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, as well as other state leaders, could only offer a muted response to these charges.
The unrest led to the demand of Prithviraj Chavan's removal from the chief minister's post. CM aspirants, including Narayan Rane, Patangrao Kadam, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Balasaheb Thorat and Harshvardhan Patil, met the party high command with a plethora of grievances - that Chavan's decision-making was slow; he failed to make political appointments on various state corporations, which led to restlessness among party leaders; and that the CM had failed to enthuse workers.
NCP, which has, time and again, hit out against Chavan, indicated it would favour veteran dalit Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde as CM. Following recent meetings with senior Congress leaders A K Antony and Ahmad Patel, Pawar announced the Congress had offered him the post of leader of the Congress-NCP alliance ahead of the state Assembly polls. This forced Chavan, whose ties with Pawar have been ambivalent, to clarify he didn't have the same impression.
Opposition parties are painting the Congress-NCP combine as corrupt, anti-farmer and pro-rich. Also, the government's handling of the dry spell and its impact on agriculture are under intense scrutiny. For an image makeover, Chavan has already roped in Accenture to prepare a comprehensive development model for the state. He has also instructed the government and the state party unit to engage advertisement and public relation agencies for aggressive campaigning in traditional and social media.
The NCP, on its part, has reworked its campaign strategy by deciding to focus equally on social media. Supriya Sule, Pawar's daughter and party MP, has been made in charge of this division. To change its pro-Maratha image, the party has appointed Sunil Tatkare, (a Hindu Gawli, part of other backward class) as president of the Maharashtra unit.
Recently, the government announced a number of major decisions, including 16 per cent reservation for Marathas and five per cent for Muslims in jobs and education; a Rs 7,000-crore Krishi Sanjivani Yojana (to provide relief to agricultural consumers in payment of dues); and the creation of Palghar as the state's 36th district. However, decisions on an extension of the Sea Link to Nariman Point, a coastal road, a waterway from Borivali to Nariman Point, and regularisation of structures in Mumbai and Pune are pending. Also, Chavan is yet to take a decision on an alternative to the local body tax, which has faced stiff opposition. Pawar has also asked Chavan to take a decision on according backward status to the Dhangar community, a deciding factor in a couple of constituencies.
The government has tabled a report by a special investigation team that probed an alleged multi-crore irrigation scam. The report gave a clean chit to NCP leader and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar.
Amid the tussle between the two parties, Pawar and Chavan have said seat-sharing talks will begin soon. Pawar has, however, insisted the NCP will seek more seats in the Assembly polls that decided earlier; the NCP is also pressing for a change in the 174-114 seat sharing formula.