Mumbai: The campaigning for the October 21 Maharashtra assembly elections has been turned by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) into a battle between themselves. The rest of the other political parties are made to look like as if they are nowhere in the contention. Be it Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah or Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis have all been attacking NCP chief Sharad Pawar in their election rallies. On the other hand Pawar seems to have picked on Shah and Fadnavis to some extent.
Even in the April-May Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, it was all about between the BJP and the NCP chief. The same trend appears to have been continued. In one of his recent statements Shah did admit that the NCP was giving the BJP a tough fight. In a way both the BJP and the NCP seem to suggest that the rest – the Congress, Shiv Sena, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), MIM or AAP are nowhere in the contention.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been questioning Pawar over his stance on abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, his trusted aide, Amit Shah has been attacking the NCP over Kashmir and the Rs 70,000 crore Irrigation scam. Pawar on the other hand has picked on Shah and in a sarcastic retort aimed at the BJP president remarked that he has never been to jail in his political career. No sooner had he said that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a case in Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSC Bank) loan disbursal to cooperative sugar mills.
Sources do admit that both the BJP and the NCP are locked in a bitter, tough fight in Western Maharashtra and Marathwada regions. Pawar has been particularly severe on Shah taking digs at the BJP leader remarking that he (Shah) has been rewarded with Home ministry for persistently shadowing the Prime Minister. Fadnavis too has been arguing that there is no worthy contestant in the fray. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi did try to make things uncomfortable for the BJP by raising questions over its silence and the dubious links it has with the directors of the collapsed Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC).
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray too jumped in the fray after Pawar criticized the Sena poll promise of Rs 10 subsidized meal for the poor. Thackeray warned the NCP chief not to get in the way of the food for poor. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray tried to bring back the focus of debate on him by making a sensational request to the electorate asking them to vote the MNS to the opposition benches, arguing that the present opposition Congress, NCP lacked the fire-power to take on the ruling BJP.
It may be recalled that in the last five years between 2014 and 2019, despite several NCP and Congress legislators eagerly wanting to cross over to the BJP-Sena camps, the BJP was careful enough in ensuring that not many defected to the BJP thereby allowing the NCP to stake claim to the leader of opposition post in the legislative assembly. The BJP seems to be mindful of the NCPs strength and does not want to face it as the opposition in the lower house. In this context the MNS chief plea to be voted to the opposition benches raises quite a few eyebrows.
The Sena president has apparently seemed to have noticed the political slugfest going on between the BJP and the NCP. Thackeray was quick to point out that in 2014 when even before the full assembly election results were to be announced senior NCP leader Praful Patel had declared NCPs unilateral support to the BJP government. It may be recalled that Thackeray had beseeched the BJP that it could welcome anybody in its fold, but not Pawar. Barring the MNS, the voices of the rest of the protagonists in the fray appear to be rather muted.
