Calling the bluff: BJP should tell ally Shiv Sena to back out of Bihar polls

The Shiv Sena is back to its old game of sulking and holding out for more in Maharashtra by threatening on another front.     The Sena has said it will contest as many as 150 seats in the upcoming Bihar assembly elections.  The Sena has never been a force to reckon with outside Maharashtra. In Bihar, it drew a blank in the last assembly elections in 2010.     [caption id=“attachment_2369694” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Shiv Sena. IBNLive[/caption] One may say the BJP should ignore the Shiv Sena and soldier on with its campaign for the Bihar elections. The Shiv Sena may seem to merely want some seats in the upcoming Bihar elections from the BJP’s quota of 160 seats, but its real aim is to wrest more for itself in the Maharashtra government in terms of additional berths in the state cabinet. The BJP did soldier on independently in Maharashtra assembly elections in 2014, defying poll pundits who warned darkly that if the Hindutva siblings fought each other, Congress and NCP would benefit.  But then the NCP and Congress too did not see eye to eye and the result was a four way contest.     The BJP became the single largest party with 122 seats in the 288 member assembly with an impressive vote share of 27.8 percent.  Shiv Sena followed with 63 seats, the vote share being 19.3 percent.     Shiv Sena has always fancied itself as the bigger Hindutva organisation in Maharashtra. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah did well to disabuse this notion, secure in the knowledge that the Lok Sabha elections had catapulted the BJP ahead of Shiv Sena.  Post the assembly elections, Shiv Sena wanted equal say in Maharashtra’s governance and started sulking. Ultimately it fell in line because it knew that it could not pass up the chance of wielding power in the only state that it had some clout. The upcoming Bihar elections unfortunately is a litmus test for the BJP and the Prime Minister in particular.  It has a point to prove that the series of victories in 2014 starting with the Lok Sabha polls and followed by Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir weren’t chance.  If it loses in Bihar, it will lose its halo with the rejuvenated opposition will go for its jugular in both in the national and state politics. The Shiv Sena could cut into BJP’s vote share, perhaps enough for the Janata Dal and its allies to romp home in the first past the post system in which a few vote percentages can make a huge difference to the overall results.  It is for the same reason Asaduddin Owaisi is strutting about in a part of Bihar, much to the consternation of Nitish Kumar. The BJP should call the Shiv Sena’s bluff by threatening to dissolve the Maharashtra assembly. The Shiv Sena’s pocket borough is Maharashtra.  Any threat there would create an existential crisis for it. It would in all probability heed the threat and behave in Bihar.  The threat should work because staying relevant in Maharashtra is more important to the Shiv Sena than playing the spoiler in Bihar.  It knows if fresh elections were called it will fare worse than it did in 2014.     In the unlikely event of the threat coming unstuck, the BJP should take the Shiv Sena head on by painting the party a rapacious monster.  The NCP and NCP are still licking their wounds.  The truth is that the Sena needs the BJP more in Maharashtra than the BJP needs it’s ally in Maharashtra or Bihar.