The hard positioning on the migrants’ issue on both sides may be the beginning of the end for the 25-year-old partnership.
Is it the end of the road for the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance? The hard positioning on the migrants’ issue on both sides may be the beginning of the end for the 25-year-old partnership.
The BJP is keen on drawing its own political roadmap for the state and it wants to move beyond the narrow and partisan agenda of the Shiv Sena to prevent dilution of its ideological core: nationalism.
“Officially, we may not have declared our divorce. But for all practical purposes we have decided to part ways,” said a BJP general secretary. Other senior leaders of the party are candid to admit that the RSS is playing the role of a catalyst in the transition. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s directive to the cadre to protect the migrants in Mumbai was aimed at sending out a strong message on the party’s intention, they said.
“The RSS has set the stage for political confrontation deliberately as it wants the BJP to come out of the Sena’s shadow in Maharashtra,” said a senior leader. The Sena now stands cornered with all political parties voicing their opposition to its ‘Mumbai for Marathis’ stand. While the BJP and the RSS have launched the first salvo, the Congress has been quick to take the cue. The Union home minister P Chidambaram on Monday described the Sena’s Mumbai for Marathis as a ‘pernicious thesis’.
The Congress has sharpened its attack against the Sena and MNS in the state. “The government will take stringent action against anybody trying to take the law in their hands. We will not hesitate to act against the Sena and the MNS if they violate the Constitutional norms,” the chief minister has said.
According to a BJP insider, “We can clearly sense that the MNS is gaining grounds on the sons of the soil plank across state. We have to draw our strategy five years ahead. The BJP-Sena alliance is going to be a disadvantage in the 2014 assembly and parliament elections.” Moreover, the RSS’ pro-north Indian position is crucial to reviving the party across the Hindi heartland - namely states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari said, “The party believes that there may be differences in languages, cultures and costumes. But there is no space for regional identity that discriminates among Indians.”
The developments have also triggered an unsavoury competition within the state unit with the Gadkari camp toeing the hard position and general secretary Gopinath Munde camp going soft against the Sena.
Politically, the big electoral battle ahead is 2012 BMC elections. The stakes are higher for the Sena compared to the BJP. But Sena-BJP have always struck alliance in assembly and parliament polls and contested separately in BMC /local bodies polls. The BJP reckons its competitor has to be Congress with pan Indian image and not the NCP which has a regional outlook.
“The split in the alliance is inevitable as RSS has taken a strategic decision to teach the Sena a lesson. There should be no ambiguity in anybody’s mind that BJP wants to capture the Sena turf. The BJP is playing its card looking at post the Bal Thackeray political scenario,” said Surendra Jhondale, head of the department of the political science (Mumbai University).
The BJP think tank is quick to point out that despite its two-decade alliance, the RSS never endorsed the Sena’s politics.
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