Maharashtra: Forget campaigns, all parties are still explaining their break-ups

The Assembly elections in Maharashtra will not be the same this time, apart from the fact that two main alliances have broken down. The uniqueness stems from the fact that all four parties which earlier constituted the two alliances, Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena on one hand, and the Congress and the Nationalistic Congress Party on the other, have spent their time only explaining away their respective break-ups. Each of the main leaders of the four parties, Prithviraj Chavan, Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray, and almost the entire core committee of the BJP, have been at pains to lob the cause for the divorce into the former partner’s court. The respective spokespersons have been spending TV time clearing their stands at the cost of other things they could have spoken about. In this Ping-Pong battle, the start of the election campaign has been a casualty. The release of their manifestos – Congress is to do it today – have been inordinately delayed. Raj Thackeray’s blueprint, so titled because manifestos are seen as a paper of no worth, released and forgotten, has looked at basic issues. But in the war of words between others, he hopes to be heard because he has something to say. The one main unwritten manifesto seems to tell the voter that each of the partners is in the elections for one main reason: defeat their long-time partners, never mind the fragment rival alliance. BJP and Sena would rather see each other whittled down in the state politics. Congress and NCP are similarly posited with respect to each other. It is hard to believe they were partners till last week, even if they bickered. [caption id=“attachment_1730969” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Maharashtra has now thrown all poll calculations off track.[/caption] Candidates have hopped parties in such numbers that the hopefuls had not even planned their campaigns at the constituency level. The sudden intra-party migration has upset several apple-carts. The near-sure aspirant suddenly found he was not in the fray at all; his tentative campaign planning has gone for a toss, and he may even end up having to support a former rival. Rivalries at local levels are far more intense. By now, the campaigning should have quite nearly peaked and the atmosphere electrified. The state is nowhere near that point. All political parties have in the past ten days launched their campaigns though their national leaders are yet to arrive on the scene. Narendra Modi would do so on 4 October for a hectic round; the Gandhis are expected too, but their schedules are not known yet. Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray do not have to look to anyone from outside to bolster their campaigns for they are both heading regional parties. It is up to them to work up the lather and get the voters to believe their versions of the development story they think they have. In a way, this campaign has been unwittingly television-centric, instead of being about big rallies. The problem with this medium is the time-limit that news anchors put on the leaders. Circumlocution is being thwarted, and spiels are being disallowed, and sharp questions on what they aim to do if elected are not being asked. The anchors are still confined to questions on the sudden dissolution of the alliances. It’s unlike any Assembly elections held in Maharashtra in recent memory. In all four parties, after the initial bravado of having decided to go it alone, the reality about the very hard work needed to get their partners out from the seats they held is sinking in. But as Opposition, BJP and Sena have no defence of their conduct as an opposition, nor Congress-NCP an explanation as to why they let the state slip. Since the campaign has to end on 13 October evening, and the polling scheduled for 15 October, all that they all have is a mere 13 days, today included, to get their acts together and go stand on the stumps. That isn’t much given that there have been no preparatory campaigns but only squabbles all around.