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Several factors weighed in to end the impasse between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena.
The likely agreement is going to be an alliance with the Sena fighting 151 and the BJP 130 seats in the coming Legislative Assembly polls, with the remaining seven divided among the other alliance partners.
The Sena was initially adamant at giving the BJP no more than 119. It decided to revise its position on deciding a divorce would make it easier for the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) combine to retain power for a fourth time, benefiting from a division of votes.
A BJP leader, who did not want to be named, told Business Standard, “Both realised that despite a sterling performance in the Lok Sabha election, where a Maha Yuti won a record 42 of the total 48 seats, the Shiv Sena and BJP would not be in a position to repeat the show if they fought Assembly polls independently.”
It wasn’t only the fear of another defeat at the hands of the Congress-NCP, the latter weaker today than ever before. The more important calculation was the worry that should the alliance break down for the Assembly, it would do so everywhere else. In the Rajya Sabha, the BJP would stand to lose; in the civic and local bodies across Maharashtra, the Sena has political compulsions to stay in power.
Not only would Anant Geete, the Sena’s lone Cabinet minister at the Centre lost his job — far more damaging would have been the danger to the Sena’s position in India's richest civic body, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation, where it has been ruling along with the BJP for 19 years. The BMC contracts are the Sena’s lifeblood. To lose this would have put serious curbs on the party’s finances.
For the BJP cadre, the issue was posed as a matter of prestige. Never before has the BJP been more ready and eager to have its candidate as Maharashtra chief minister. Its workers are confident that despite contesting fewer seats, their strike rate would be better than the Sena. But that might not have been the case if the party had contested independent of the Sena. Within striking distance of having a BJP CM for the first time in history, the party cadres were persuaded to compromise and not blow up this chance.
WINNERS AND LOSERS
Winners
BJP: The party seems to have got what it wanted in terms of the number of seats it would contest. With a better strike rate than ally Shiv Sena, it can hope to emerge as the single largest party and have its chief minister in Maharashtra for the first time in history
Devendra Fadnavis: The BJP state unit chief has the opportunity to steer the party to a victory and be the first BJP chief minister of Maharashtra
Losers
Nationalist Congress Party: The biggest loser. It had watched BJP-Sena negotiations as an interested party but now is perforce pushed into an alliance with Congress
Uddhav Thackeray: Shiv Sena chief raised the pitch but eventually scaled down, realising BJP was unlikely to honour him like it did of father Bal Thackeray
Nitin Gadkari: The senior BJP leader wanted the party to take roots in Maharashtra as a force independent of its ally, the Sena, but failed
Amit Shah: BJP national president brought himself down by engaging with Thackeray, a leader of a state party, instead of ensuring that Thackeray negotiated with BJP state unit chief
Time will tell…
Shiv Sena: The seat-sharing formula remains in its favour. However, it also has much to lose, as a poor electoral performance could result in losing CM’s seat
