The BJP is heaving a sigh of relief at the seat-sharing deal, but doubts remain on whether the Sena will deliver.
The present relationship between the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can be equated to an open marriage. They are together, but both fear that the other is flirting with someone else and no one knows how long it will last.
Senior leaders in the BJP admit the lack of chemistry among the top leaders of both the Sena and the BJP. Bal Thackeray no longer exercises absolute power in the Sena while the BJP lacks a strategist like the late Pramod Mahajan, who also enjoyed a good personal equation with Thackeray.
The current differences between the Sena and the BJP are not based on ideology but political upmanship.
Once the campaign gets under way, the common minimum agenda to oust the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance from power in New Delhi is expected to bring them closer. However, the BJP’s big fear is the suspected relationships between the Sena and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party in half a dozen constituencies.
“We are not blind to the Sena-NCP politics,” said a senior BJP leader, “We are also going to engage local outfits regionwise to consolidate our own turf and battle the. It will include the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, the Bahujan Samaj Party and factions of the Republican Party of India.”
Within hours after the Sena-BJP alliance was sealed, it has become evident that while the BJP considers the Congress-NCP alliance as its primary enemy, for the Sena’s working president Uddhav Thackeray, the real enemy is only the Congress, not the NCP.
“The Sena’s open-ended affair with the NCP (Pawar) shows that it fears that Raj Thackeray’s MNS will overtake the Sena if they don’t return to power in the state in the 2009 assembly elections,” said a political analyst. “The Sena hopes Pawar will help them stay on centrestage in the state.”
A BJP official said, “Someone we managed to stitch together
this alliance for the Lok Sabha. But sharing 288 constituencies (of the Maharashtra assembly) will be a nightmare for the state assembly elections in September 2009.”
The BJP is clearly preparing for the possibility of life without the Sena after the parliamentary elections.
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