Will the ship sink or sail? We will only find out on February 23...
As the biggest local body election takes place in Mumbai on Tuesday to decide the fate of 2,275 candidates, all eyes are set on the future of the ruling partners amidst uncertainty between Shiv Sena and the BJP in a run-up to the BMC polls 2017.
For the first time in two decades, the ruling BJP - Shiv Sena alliance is not contesting the elections together. A bond that was sealed by the then Sena Supremo Bal Thackeray and BJP leader Pramod Mahajan on the agenda of Hindutva, has now gone kaput (at least for time being).
While alliances are formed and break often in politics, it's has been peculiar to watch how these parties have tried to take over each other's voter base.
When the BJP - Shiv Sena alliance was formed in 1989, these parties had their clear vote banks with which they captured power and retained it. But this time around the 'marriage of convenience' wasn't yielding the preferred results at the BMC level at least, so they learnt to up their game.
In 2014, BJP adapted to ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’ pretty soon. Ahead of the Maharashtra assembly elections, BJP which was now in power over its development plans changed its strategy and was going to woo voters in the state by using Shivaji Maharaj's name, which they continued ahead of current BMC elections too.
However, the “senior alliance partner” Shiv Sena who is better known for using its ‘Marathi Maanoos’ card, has finally realised that when things don't seem to be falling in place with your “junior partner”, you need to change your stance. From late 2016, Gujarati banners started coming up in suburbs dominated by the community, which was a first in the 40 years of Sena’s history. An ideal example of 'desperate times call for desperate measures'.
In the last 2.5 years, however, the lotus has been blooming in different parts of the country with a lot of prominent political parties finding it difficult to hold on to their dominant position. Despite the hue and cry over demonetization, a move by the Modi government, the results of the by-elections in the six states and Chandigarh Municipal Corporation were in BJP’s favour.
While the Sena has always publicly expressed its disregard for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his policies, BJP also managed to steal away Sena's thunder ahead of the polls by laying the foundation stone for the Rs 3,600-crore Shivaji memorial and portraying Modi as the crusader of Maharashtrian pride.
With the crucial elections now underway, we will only know on February 23 - the result day - whose dance attracted the most voters.
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