Central Hall weekly column: Game of Thrones

It is not exactly the Game of Thrones that is being played right now within the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), rather it is a Game for Thrones that is currently being played in Maharashtra. The semblance of unity that was beginning to take shape in the recent rounds of Zilla Parishad elections, it seems to be coming apart over the Aurangabad Zilla Parishad election. The civic elections seem to have given a vent for the unhappy souls in the MVA to express their resentment at being overlooked or being given a raw deal.

The stuttering start to the MVA with the Congress, NCP leaving the Sena high and dry at the Raj Bhavan during the government formation process, pointed to the shape of things to come. In a two party alliance government, the power sharing arrangement is well settled between the dominant and junior partners, if the dominant alliance partner has comfortable majority of its own over its junior partner.

Also Read: Central Hall – Is the BJP imploding?

In a multi-party grand or mega alliance like the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime and Dr Manmohan Singh regimes were often marked with smaller allies constantly snipping at the heels of the dominant partner. Devendra Fadnavis had to endure the barbs of the Sena in Maharashtra and the BJP at the Center.

But, neither, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Chandrababu Naidu or Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena could not throw much tantrums before Narendra Modi. That is because in both his terms, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP at least at the Center has its own majority, and hence the smaller NDA allies have little scope for arm twisting the BJP. Fadnavis could afford to ignore the Sena criticism during his reign. However, the moment he fell well short of the majority mark, the Sena began its pressure tactics.

The Sena now cannot use the same bargaining power against the Congress and the NCP who are past masters at the game. Despite being the single largest party, the Sena is slowly realizing that it cannot play the hardball with the Congress and the NCP, like it used to with the BJP. The first realization that dawned on the Sena was during the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), that it cannot keep an independent identity of its own.

Beyond doing some feeble gestures over the controversy stoked by the Congress over Veer Savarkar, the Sena again could not do much. Now the Sena has to endure the temper tantrums being thrown by the Congress which is demanding much meatier ministries. Neither can the Sena ill afford to antagonize the NCP. In Beed ZP elections to president and deputy presidents posts, despite the local Shiv Sena wanting to support its natural ally the BJP, had to finally toe the MVA line and support a dominant NCP.

However, Abdul Sattar in Aurangabad and Anil Babar in Sangli both ‘outsider’s’ in Sanjay Raut’s terminology seem to have defied the party dictate. Both have used the ZP elections as their bargaining chip for representation in the state cabinet.

It is the internal pressures and pulls that initially delayed the formation of the MVA government, then the expansion got delayed as everyone wanted a piece of the power pie. Now everyone wants key portfolios, what is worse is that even the allotment of official residences for ministers should have become a bone of contention between some.

Even the expansion of the month old cabinet got delayed as placating of so many grumpy aspirants was made to look like a herculean task. Now the delay in allocation of portfolio’s and district guardian ministers has made even the state NCP president Jayant Patil sarcastically remark that just like the people of the state were eager to know who got which ministry, they too were quite eager to know the same. Amidst all this stalemate, the electorate seems to be looking in askance as to what they had voted for and what they got in return.