For the last 25 years, the Sena was the acknowledged leader of its alliance with the BJP in the assembly; in 2009, it contested 169 seats, while the BJP contested 119. By an agreement of long standing, in the event of victory the Sena would nominate the chief minister, and the BJP would content itself with the post of deputy chief minister. Now, the “Modi wave” has given the BJP’s hopes an unprecedented boost. A BJP leader based in Delhi told me that the party was looking to expand its footprint in the state, and contest at least 60 more seats than it previously had. The BJP, which has not yet projected a chief ministerial candidate, may also wish to wrest that post away from the Sena—effectively, from Uddhav Thackeray—on the strength of its electoral performance. In an early sign of trouble last month, the two parties fell out over the Shiv Sena’s Utha Maharashtra—“Wake up, Maharashtra”—slogan. As a senior Sena leader told Mid Day: “UTha is the abbreviated form of ‘Uddhav Thackeray’ and, by adding Maharashtra to it, we have made it more catchy.” “The alliance has still not decided who the CM will be,” the BJP leader Vinod Tawde recently told the Marathi newspaper Loksatta. “The Shiv Sena would want Uddhav to be CM, but the alliance will decide unanimously.” Anosh Malekar on how the BJP–Shiv Sena alliance is gaining ground ahead of the Maharashtra elections.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 08:56:18 +0000
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