Maha games: Pawar playing hot and cold bodes ill for BJP and NCP

It has been weeks since Maharashtra has had a minority government in place, but we still do not know if the Shiv Sena is going to be the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ally or its opposition. When I raised this with a political analyst, he shot back, “it is such a silly political situation that it has even ceased being entertaining!”

The so called talks between the two parties are said to be going on, without anyone knowing who exactly from the two parties are talking. More than anything else, the entire situation appears to be a game of signals through the media, either via responses to questions or statements at a public rallies.

For instance, we have Devendra Fadnavis saying in Delhi, “Sena has been our friend”. Can this be construed as a ‘reaching out?’ After all he and his colleagues were saying this even during the election campaign when the two parties were contesting separately.

Obviously this soap opera will continue for some time before the BJP makes up its mind on whether the Nationalist Congress Party can be depended upon to bail them out whenever the government needs a vote in its favour in the legislature.

And the uncanny Sharad Pawar has not helped the BJP make up its mind, also making one wonder if the seasoned politician has lost his touch.

Remember, his offer of unsolicited outside support, was supposed to be unconditional mainly because Maharashtra required a stable government, and none of the political parties – in other words the NCP and ongress – wanted another election or the imposition of President’s Rule.

President’s Rule would be the first obvious outcome if the BJP’s minority government was unsettled.

If that were so, why did he quibble about how it was not NCP’s responsibility to keep the government going for its full term? Does he intend to rebuild his party in the next couple of years and marshal resources to take the fight back to the BJP in a likely mid-term elections? Or like the Shiv Sena, is he caught between two factions within the party of its status vis-à-vis the BJP?

Regardless of what he has said so far, one perceived purpose of the NCP’s outside support was that the NCP wanted to ensure that the Shiv Sena was kept out of the government as a means of destroying the power hungry party. The decimation of the Sena in the long run is to the NCP’s gain.

The Congress can be depended upon to muff its lines and let itself weaken further, especially when it is neither in power nor in the frontlines of the Opposition, a place the Sena could occupy with the NCP being a mere “outside supporter” to the BJP.

That position is helpful to Pawar’s party for it can wrangle, quietly, for a loosening of the rope. There are cases for instance, that the NCP would not like to be pursued against its former ministers.

It seems to be lost on Pawar that by pushing the Sena into an embrace with the BJP, he is actually inviting problems for the NCP, described by the BJP’s numero uno, Narendra Modi as ’the Nation’s Corrupt Party’.

If the BJP and the Sena get together, the likelihood of a close scrutiny of the NCP’s role in the Congress-NCP government increases. Unless, of course, Pawar is playing a brutal game of teasing the Sena – “we are here, so you’ll be out”.

His blow-hot, blow-cold statements have nevertheless, made the BJP extremely uncomfortable forcing it towards rapprochement with the Sena for some durability. But the unwillingness of the BJP to pay the price – a deputy chief ministership plus heavy portfolios – for removing its vulnerability to NCP’s whims, are showing it up as a party that is unsure of how to run the government for its full term.

So what kind of government can Maharashtra expect to have? One, a jittery one which has to look over its shoulder at the NCP all the time, humouring it to the extent it ceases to have command over policies and administrative decisions; two, a post-poll coalition with the Sena, without working out common minimum programme. That too can render the BJP vulnerable to unreasonable demands.

It is for the BJP to choose.