It’s alliance that matters

On Monday, Shaina NC, a familiar face as spokesperson of the BJP, filed her nomination as the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde group) candidate from Mumbadevi constituency in Mumbai in the upcoming assembly elections. She had resigned from the BJP and joined the Sena just ahead of filing the nomination. This was not a case of a leader shifting party for a nomination or a party outfit poaching from a rival group, but an example of a party borrowing or accommodating a leader from an ally to fight on its flag and symbol in the absence of a suitable candidate among its ranks. What is interesting is that Shaina is not an exception, there are at least nine constituencies where the constituents of the Mahayuti, the alliance comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena (Shinde), and the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar), have swapped candidates. This trend is the outcome of the political chaos in Maharashtra, where parties have split and ideological ranks have been broken in the pursuit of power.

If the 2019 Maharashtra assembly elections were contested mainly by two broad alliances constituting two parties each, the four has become six this time, which has resulted in a seat squeeze, causing rebellion within the party ranks. The alliances — Mahayuti and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) — have thrashed out seat-sharing arrangements after extended and acrimonious negotiations. All six parties in the fray — the BJP, Congress, and the Sena and NCP groups — have sought maximum seats, mainly to maintain their supremacy in a polity undergoing churn and to accommodate seat aspirants within their ranks. The Mahayuti have tried to contain any potential fallout of this messy affair by swapping both seats and candidates. This could help restrict intra-party rebellion as well as meet the need of parties to field a certain number of candidates as part of the boast about their importance within the alliance.

The outcome is a subtle shift where the alliance is privileged over the party. Just as the ideological lines have blurred, party boundaries too have been erased with candidates seeking votes for the alliance. The Mahayuti has done this in a relatively more organised manner whereas, in the MVA, Sharad Pawar has been the arbiter. Pawar has worked out the seat-sharing among the constituents, negotiated inter-party conflicts, and glued together the alliance to win an election that will test his skills as a politician. The message in this Maharashtra poll is power trumps party, so alliance is the key, and party fidelity is secondary.