Looking back at some of the ‘Maha’ political drama over the years
The past week in Indian polity has had to be one of the craziest and well-written plots, even by the standards of what they have set in the past. Everybody knew about how relations had strained between the ruling parties of the NDA alliance in the state of Maharashtra, and they have bickered about and contested separately in both the 2014 Assembly and the 2017 BMC elections. Yet they set their differences aside and contested the 2019 Assembly elections together and won as an alliance comfortably……till the Shiv Sena decided they want their share of the power dynamic.
The BJP, which over the years had outgrown the Shiv Sena as the senior party in Maharashtra, declined the Shiv Sena’s proposal of sharing the coveted Chief Minister post for two and a half years each. The Shiv Sena had claimed that discussions between the BJP supremo Amit Shah and their leader Uddhav Thakeray had resulted in an ‘agreement’ to rotate the CM post which the BJP outright denied. This led to the alliance breaking up, with both parties ‘calling out’ each other on the ‘lies’ they had spread. Now, the BJP is all set to triumph Shiv Sena as the big brother Hindutva party.
With the NCP and the Congress initially out of the picture because of their lack of seats to claim the throne, they had been watching from the sidelines. But with time to redraw the power lines following the announcement of President’s rule in the state, the two decided to have talks with the Shiv Sena to form an anti-BJP government in the state. On the night of November 22, Sharad Pawar of the NCP had claimed that the three parties had come to an agreement on joining hands to rule the state. NCP, Congress and Shiv Sena despite being bitter rivals and ideologically immiscible, saw a compromise on their stance.
Kerala lobby of Congress was trying its best to convince the high command to not ally with the Shiv Sena, in order to protect its so-called Secular image. While the Maharastra Congress was determined not to lose its god-given opportunity. It questioned the Kerala lobby by asking if Congress can side with pro-Muslim IUML then why not Shiv Sena?
Till of course, the next morning, Devendra Fadnavis had taken oath as the Chief Minister of the state:
The BJP, in a flash, had apparently persuaded Mr Pawar’s nephew Ajit, to have his MLAs join up with the BJP to form an alliance, which was news to the elder statesman:
This forced the Supreme Court to intervene as the Opposition trio moved the court to oversee what had happened that day. The three parties were confident they had the numbers and that Ajit Pawar had no cards to play in this situation. They demanded a floor test from the new CM, who had to now show that they had the numbers to rule the state. By Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered for a floor test to be held by the next evening, which was swiftly followed by Ajit Pawar’s resignation- and inevitably Devendra Fadnavis had to follow suit, leading to his dubious entry in the history books for the shortest tenure in Maharashtra’s history. This paved the way for Uddhav Thakeray of the Shiv Sena, a person who has never held any administrative post to lead the line.
If you thought the 80-hour tenure of Fadnavis was short, spare a thought for Jagdambika Pal. He holds the record for the shortest tenure of any CM in India, sharing it with the iconic one-day CM Shivaji Rao (Nayak) without the success the latter had. Having found his place in the BJP after leaving the Congress (a path well-trodden by many), he initially wrested control from the BJP government led by Kalyan Singh in February 1998, only to lose power the very next day.
And speaking of Nayak, who can forget the modern-day equivalent, Arvind Kejriwal, who promised so much when he took the power of Delhi in 2013, of course with the help of the party he had sworn to destroy (the Congress that is) and lasted 49 long days in the process?
Between the Maharashtra events and what happened in Karnataka at the end of the Assembly elections in 2018, the BJP seems to have some experience with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory lately. BJP emerged as the single largest party with 104 members but Congress with 78 and JD (S) with 37 MLAs came to power after BS Yeddyurappa tried to claim a majority without the required numbers and the JDS kept all their MLAs in a resort to avoid losing them to the BJP.
But let’s be fair to Amit Shah, they did eventually gain Karnataka and Maharashtra isn’t that far off, despite there seemingly being a conclusion.
Also, we are talking about a party that somehow managed to form a government in Goa with just 13 seats out of 40 in 2017, while the Congress with more MLAs in hand were dozing off, expecting to form the government. The independents and other parties were satisfied with how BJP was willing to bring the then defence minister, Manohar Parrikar, from such an important post for the country to take charge of such a massive state (just kidding to any Goan who accidentally stumbled upon this!)
Another state which has witnessed fluctuations in the political alliances is Bihar, which is dominated by major players like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar. Having been part of the NDA fold for so many years, Kumar and his party JDU left the NDA in 2013 after Narendra Modi was chosen as the candidate to lead NDA’s bid to end ten years of UPA rule. The BJP did handsomely well in the 2014 General Elections, riding on the ‘Modi wave’ across all the states, including Bihar.
But in the following year, Nitish Kumar joined hands with his eternal rival Yadav to deliver a stunning electoral victory against the BJP which, along with the ‘Delhi Drubbing’, reminded the ruling party that their Lok Sabha electoral gains was limited to the Lok Sabha electoral gains was not simply going to transform their state-level ambitions. But due to major differences in this anti-BJP alliance and Modi offering more central government benefits, Nitish Kumar continued his rule, switching partners with the BJP in 2017.
Looking at the situation of the union governments over the years, they do tend to stick around for more than three days, but the Nineties saw quite a bit of drama in terms of how the governments changed.
In contrast to the massive sympathy-wave voting that gave the Congress 414 of the 542 seats possible in 1984, the following election in 1989 saw a hung parliament which led to the National Front (aka the ‘We hate Congress’ club) taking over the government. This eclectic mix of parties featured the Janatha Dal and other regional parties with support from the Left and the BJP (truly covering the entire political spectrum of the nation). The front formed by Vishwanath Pratap Singh who had enough of the corruption in the Congress, collapsed after he tried to arrest Lal Krishna Advani for his agitation for demolishing the Babri Masjid (which eventually happened) and the BJP withdrawing their outside support. This government just lasted for a year, which was followed by the Congress’s rule and the famous liberalization of the Indian economy in 1991 by P V Narasimha Rao and the then finance minister, Manmohan Singh. But corruption and the criminal connections seemed to be very strong during the same tenure (same as UPA 2.0?) and thus the fight between the Congress, BJP and the regional satraps raged for two years from 1996 to 1998, with A B Vajpayee winning in the end:
After the end of Rao’s tenure in May 1996, the nation saw four prime ministers in a span of three years- two tenures of Atal Bihari Vajpayee; one tenure of H. D. Deve Gowda from 1 June 1996 to 21 April 1997; and one tenure of I. K. Gujral from 21 April 1997 to 19 March 1998.
And to think that this is the least of the political twists and turns we have seen over the years across the country!
In short, Indian politics has had the kind of dramatic twists and turns which might as well have been written by the makers of House of Cards. From promises of cabinet berths and bribes to having MLAs in resorts to prevent any form of poaching, there is so much going on behind the scenes that we are not even aware of. But the real loser here is us, the citizens of the nation. We might have fun watching a bunch of people trip themselves over in their lust for power, but these are the same people whose policy decisions will impact our day to day life. At last, we understand that politics is a mere number game and not an ideological battle.
If we cannot say with certainty who we will be elected to the government because the parties play around with the alliances, what is the point of holding elections in the first place? And it is easy to lose faith in the various institutions of the nation when there is no politician with consistent principles to back.
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