The Shiv Sena leadership may still nurse hopes of a last-minute rapprochement with the BJP, but some party MLAs, who have seen the writing on the wall, are sharpening their knives to take on their estranged ally.
The Devendra Fadnavis-led minority government will face a litmus test in the Maharashtra assembly on Wednesday over the election of the speaker and, above all, the trust vote.
While BJP veteran Haribhau Bagade will face off with Sena's Vijayrao Auti and Congress's Varsha Gaikwad in a triangular contest, BJP leaders claim they have mustered the support of 140 members in the House. These include seven independents, three legislators each from the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi and Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), apart from smaller parties, according to them.
Moreover, the NCP is likely to either abstain from the trust vote or support the BJP, helping it get past the halfway mark in a 287-member House (the number has reduced by one due to the death of a BJP MLA).
The Sena will wait till Wednesday morning to gauge if the BJP is willing to accommodate it in the government. The party has already staked claim to the leader of opposition post in assembly for its MLA Eknath Shinde.
"It is clear that the BJP does not want us in the government," said a Sena MLA, adding that they should now concentrate on appropriating the opposition space and take on the BJP. He pointed to how the Sena still had a strong grass-roots base in the rural areas, from where a majority of their MLAs hailed.
"We plan to take the BJP to task for the next five years. We will go through the speeches by BJP leaders who are ministers today, wherein they had accused the Congress-NCP government of scams, and question them about the action to be taken now that they are in power," said the MLA. He claimed the BJP had worked consistently to wean off Congress and NCP dissidents who were eager to enter the party, especially in Western Maharashtra, and later fielded them as BJP nominees in the assembly elections.
"The BJP broke it off with the Sena. We were unable to anticipate this move," he admitted, adding that party president Uddhav Thackeray's vacillation could be attributed to his attempts to get the BJP to make a formal announcement that the two estranged allies were breaking off their ties (instead of the Sena). This would show the people that the BJP was at fault, the legislator claimed.
"The BJP wants to finish the Congress off. For this, they are striking a deal with the NCP, which has a base which somewhat overlaps with that of the Congress. The BJP aims to eventually take over our base as we have a common social and political catchment on the issue of Hindutva," he admitted.
However, there are some who nurse hopes of a last-minute breakthrough. "After all, everyone wants to come to power. And being part of the government is essential to work for the people," said another Sena legislator.
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