When it rains, it pours. The saying is coming true for the beleaguered Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra. The BJP-led ruling front Maha Yuti, is yet to recover from the electoral shocks and the situation is already becoming more complex and confounding.
While the BJP high command has kept quiet on Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ ‘offer’ of quitting the state Cabinet and work for the party, over a dozen legislators of Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party are said to be in touch with Sharad Pawar’s party.
On the other hand, the Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said the Opposition’s Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will win 185 of the total 288 seats in the Assembly polls scheduled in October-November this year.
Fadnavis is perhaps the only leader in the party who took the moral responsibility for the BJP’s defeat. No one at the national level, or in Uttar Pradesh expressed the will to resign from their party positions on moral grounds.
Fadnavis who is said to be the mastermind behind splits in the Shiv Sena and the NCP that toppled the Uddhav Thackeray government, was promoted and backed by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, to checkmate Nitin Gadkari and others in the BJP who were not pliable.
Modi controlled Maharashtra through Fadnivis for the last ten years. Therefore, he cannot act on Fadnavis's request without getting a substitute for him. This is because Maharashtra will have Assembly polls in the next few months.
The Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra have shown that Modi is not a vote catcher and Shah is not a Chanakya. The BJP got only nine seats of the 28 it had contested in alliance with Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena, and Ajit Pawar's NCP. Besides, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray also campaigned for the BJP.
But the BJP high command has to decide about Maharashtra urgently if the party wants to remain relevant in the Assembly polls. It cannot rely on Shinde and Pawar, whose MLAs are already looking for other options after realising that they are not safe with the BJP.
Speculation in the political circles is rife that Shinde and Ajit's parties are vulnerable to split before the Assembly polls. Shinde reportedly wants to expand his cabinet in a bid to hold onto his MLAs.
According to a section of the media, half of Ajit Pawar’s MLAs can join the BJP and the rest are willing to return to Sharad Pawar's NCP. This is because the political situation in Maharashtra has become fragile after the Lok Sabha elections. Partners of Maha Yuti fear that the BJP would treat Shinde and Ajit Pawar as ‘Agniveers’ to just “use and throw them out when done”.
A section of the Ajit’ Pawar’s party see the possibility of him quitting Maha Yuti in August and contest the maximum number of the Assembly seats. This is because his party has become a junior partner in the ruling front and will be given less seats than the BJP and Shinde's Sena.
Sharad Pawar, Jayant Patil and Sanjay Raut have predicted that the MVA would get 185 seats in the upcoming Assembly elections, and form a government.
The BJP won one seat in Mumbai, two in Vidarbha, and drew a blank in Marathwada. Its three Union Ministers: Raosaheb Danve, Kapil Patil, and Bharati Pawar lost the elections.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had held public meetings in six Lok Sabha seats in Mumbai but the BJP-led Maha Yuti managed to secure victory in only two seats. Piyush Goyal won from Mumbai North, and Ravindra Waikar secured a win from the Mumbai North West seat.
Modi held a roadshow in Mumbai North East Lok Sabha constituency's Ghatkopar area. But there, the BJP candidate Mihir Kotecha was defeated by Shiv Sena-UBT candidate Sanjay Dina Patil.
Modi also held a public meeting in Pune seeking votes for BJP candidate Murlidhar Mohol, who went on to defeat Congress's Ravindra Dhangekar. Modi also addressed meetings in Nashik, Nanded, Chandrapur, Ramtek, Wardha, namaste Parbhani, Kolhapur, Solapur, Madha, Latur, Ahmadnagar, Beed, Nandurbar, Latur, Osmanabad, and Dindori but that did not help the Maha Yuti.