Shiv Sena-BJP 'love marriage' heads towards talaq: Both parties messed up royally

From all appearances, the Shiv Sena-BJP “love marriage” of 25 years ago is heading for the divorce court. It’s a pity, for the two parties have more ideological coherence than any two other partners in any alliance. A break-up would be a loss for both because the Sena loses clout in its home state, and the BJP the chance of a stable government in Maharashtra, not to speak of 18 MPs in parliament who will be difficult to replace.

Even if a patch-up is agreed at the last minute, it will only result in a temporary truce where both partners will cohabit while remaining suspicious of what the other is up to or whether it is cheating on the side.

The divorce is overdue because both parties have changed, the electorate has mutated, and the old glue of ideological affinity is not strong enough to hold them to their vows. The BJP under Narendra Modi is not the easygoing party of Atal Behari Vajpayee and LK Advani. Its priorities are better governance and growth to meet the aspirations of young India and it has developed a larger national ambition. The Sena has inherited the legacy of Bal Thackeray, but the late tiger’s cub is not the man to carry it forward. Too many in the Sena hierarchy are seriously compromised with vested interests and are in the party more for the benefits of office than to serve the people. Nothing illustrates this better than the headlines about what the Sena is demanding in Maharashtra - a Deputy CM’s post, some key ministries. This is unlikely to endear it to the electorate.

The second reason for the rupture is an overestimation of their own relative strengths and underestimation of their weaknesses. The Sena thought its Marathi manoos slogan would keep it ahead or close to the BJP seat count in last month’s assembly elections; it found out to its chagrin that the BJP got twice as many seats than itself. The BJP believes that if it has to go to the voter once more, it will gain more seats. Maybe it will, but it cannot be sure of two things: whether the voter is keen on another election and whether all parties will fight separately the next time, too. One cannot rule out a Congress-NCP alliance or even a tacit NCP-Sena seat arrangement to bring down the BJP, even though the Sena is making noises against the NCP and warning the BJP against relying on Sharad Pawar’s party for winning the trust vote this week. The party is also over-reliant on Modi’s larger-than-life image and has not evaluated its lack of organisational strength in areas beyond Mumbai and Vidarbha.

Both parties also underestimate the value the other brings to the table. The BJP surely requires the Sena’s 18 MPs in parliament if it wants to push crucial legislation through. The Sena surely requires the BJP in Mumbai to run the municipal corporation.

Lastly, it is clear that both parties have played their cards badly.

The BJP’s big error was in handling the optics badly. It made no sense for Modi and Shah to publicly show Uddhav his place when the latter was down. It is perfectly all right for parties to privately talk tough and extract a better deal from the other, but if such muscle-flexing happens in full public view, it becomes impossible for the Sena to back down gracefully. The lack of top-level connect between the parties, combined with the ego battles the state BJP leadership was indulging in to avenge the old hurts inflicted by the Sena under Bal Thackeray, has meant that the two parties are making a compromise impossible.

In Bal Thackeray’s time, the Sena needlessly humiliated the BJP when it refused to back the party’s presidential candidate in 2007, and by trying to play favourites in the BJP leadership stakes in 2012. Balasaheb backed Sushma Swaraj for PM when it would have been prudent for him to not take sides in an ally’s internal politics.

The BJP, for its part, seems to be keen to humiliate the Sena so that the party has no option but to break away; the Sena, for its part, seems oblivious to the change taking place in the electorate, where the public expects better governance and results. If coalition dharma in the past only meant sharing the spoils of office, today, no coalition partner can presume that its interests are different from that of the majority party: both have to deliver. The electorate will accept nothing less.

In this context, for the Sena to seek to insert pure party hacks and not performers into the central ministry makes no sense. The Sena would have got a better deal from Modi if it had offered ministers of calibre instead of merely making an issue of cabinet posts. Modi does not give even his own party members too much leeway on such matters; how did the Sena expect big concessions from him on this score? Logically, Modi would have been happy if the Sena had offered Suresh Prabhu as its nominee. But it chose someone else. Modi was happy to take him into the BJP and he is now railway minster. The Sena lost a big ministry because it was hung-up on status rather than performance. The same point applies to the Sena’s demands in Maharashtra.

So, while it is fair for the Sena to demand face-saving posts like Deputy CM, seeking ministries from where it can dispense patronage is not on. The UPA coalition has given a bad name to the idea of coalition dharma, and no government can repeat that mistake again. The Sena needs to understand this if it is to make a comeback.

It is, of course, difficult to retrieve a marriage where the partners have been arguing all night and refuse to seek middle ground.

It would be best for the BJP and Sena to break up quickly rather than let the damage continue indefinitely. A no-fault divorce is better than an ugly fight in court in full public view.