“Meech Mukhyamantri Honaar” (“Only I will be the CM”)

Anand
3 min readOct 25, 2020

Many people, particularly those who voted for BJP + Shiv Sena alliance in the previous elections, are deeply concerned with what is happening in Maharashtra. They see the current Aghadi-Govt as being completely controlled by the NCP & Congress who are bent on pursuing their divisive agenda. The standard of Governance has plummeted, and the Maharashtra Govt seems to be reaching fresh lows on a daily basis. Most BJP supporters hold the Shiv Sena and its Chief Uddhav Thackeray responsible for the state of affairs. They feel it is his selfishness that has allowed the NCP & Congress to make a come-back in this large, electorally important and financially critical province.

It is almost 1 year since the Maharashtra Assembly elections were held, and this is a good time to revisit what happened, with the benefit of hindsight. Readers of Marathi newspapers will recollect the meeting between Amit Shah, Devendra Fadnavis and Uddhav Thackeray at Matoshri just prior to the Lok Sabha elections of 2019. Next day, Marathi newspapers carried Uddhav’s statement that CM-ship would be shared between two parties in Maharashtra, in lieu of Shiv Sena supporting Modi for Prime Ministership. There was no significant pushback to this statement by the BJP at that time, clearly because BJP did not want to jeopardize Modi’s chances in the Lok Sabha. The two parties arrived at a seat-sharing arrangement and fought the subsequent Assembly elections together.

In the assembly elections, the BJP did significantly worse than it did in 2014. This was in spite of Balakot a few months earlier, and a generally positive opinion of Modi. It was clear that voters did not have a high opinion of the Fadnavis Govt; certainly nowhere near the kind of image BJP supporters had created. It was in this situation that Shiv Sena reminded the BJP of the rotational CM-ship formula and publicly offered to continue the alliance if BJP agreed to a 2.5 year CM-ship for each party.

Even assuming (as BJP says) that no such thing was decided, let us examine the proposal. In 2014, BJP got 121 seats and Sena got 56. In 2019, BJP got 104 seats and Sena got 51. This means over a 10-year period of the alliance, Sena got 107 seats vs 225 for BJP. (Ratio 1: 2.1). During this 10-year period, Sena was asking for CM-ship for 2.5 years compared to 7.5 years for BJP (Ratio 1:3). Mathematically, the Sena proposal was more than fair. Given that BJP had been given considerably fewer seats by the electorate, the BJP should have accepted this proposal and formed an alliance with the Sena. However, Fadnavis, instead of taking a pragmatic and a reasonable approach, stuck to his “Meech Mukhyamantri Honaar” line (“Only I will be the CM”). What Fadnavis did was exactly similar to the age-old practice of Indian rulers putting their self-interest above all else. There were no negotiations, nor efforts between the Hindutva partners to arrive at a consensus. Shockingly, the so called Chanakya of the BJP did not bother to intervene to put together a Govt in Maharashtra, like he did in Haryana. In the meanwhile, Shiv Sena and NCP + Congress managed to cobble together an arrangement. Of course, for a brief period, we were treated to the parody of Fadnavis forming a Govt with Mr. Ajit Pawar (against whose ‘corruption’ Fadnavis had railed his entire life).

Today, it is clear that the Shiv Sena is compromising on its principals to stay in power. The BJP too has compromised its principals, and yet it is not even in power! BJP supporters feel that the present Aghadi-Govt is unstable and will fall. That is wishful thinking. No such thing is going to happen, because there are immense benefits to each of the three parties in continuing with the arrangement.

BJP going solo will find it hard to win future elections, given that Sainiks are sticking with the Sena and the NCP & Congress are rebuilding their grassroot organizations. Imagine how different the situation would have been today, had the BJP in 2019, taken pragmatic steps to join hands with the Sena: a 50–50 arrangement with a partner of over 30 years. The state may well end up paying a heavy price thanks to the intransigence of the former CM.

There is a bitter lesson to be learnt here for the BJP supporters. Leaders of AIMIM or the AIDUF will never stray from their principles for the sake of personal benefits. BJP too needs to identify and promote ideologically committed, selfless leaders rather than those with “Meech Mukhyamantri Honaar” mentality.

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Anand
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Observer of Indian Politics & Current Affairs @eyesandears16