Maha Saga: After Divorce with Sena, BJP aims to win over smaller parties; Congress ties knot with SP, Maharashtra election news updates, Maharashtra political news, latest and political news 2014
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- Category: Maharashtra Political News
- Last Updated: Thursday, 22 January 2015 21:04
Maha Saga: After Divorce with Sena, BJP aims to win over smaller parties; Congress ties knot with SP
Mumbai: It is the dawn of a new chapter in Maharashtra politics as all four major parties in the state will go alone in the forthcoming Assembly Polls. After the Bharatiya Janata Party called off its alliance with the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party also announced its decision to break ties with the Congress.
Within a span of an hour, time-tested alliances of decades lay shattered with both the BJP and NCP refusing to play second fiddle to the Shiv Sena and Congress in their respective alliances, parting ways to make the Assembly polls truly a multi-cornered contest.
The Congress is now trying to capatalise on the Samajwadi Party's strong show in the Uttar Pradesh by-polls. "We are going to have an alliance with Samajwadi Party. We took all decisions in the best interest of Maharashtra, not in the interest of alliance partners," said Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.
"The Samajwadi Party has not come to power after the break-up of this alliance. I have been talking about the anti-social elements which are gaining stregnth in the nation. We have seen that Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar who have been fighting each other for 20 years have come together to stop these antisocial elements and have won over the BJP in the by-elections. I have been talking about gathering all secular people and making a secular fund.
Talks have been going on in this regard," said SP leader Abu Azmi. It is clear that the BJP now is attempting to bring under its fold the smaller regional outfits to project itself as the real alternative in the state while the NCP would want to forge an alliance with other secular outfits like the Left and the SP. The role of Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena would also be keenly watched as the break-up provides opportunity to the estranged cousin of Uddhav Thackeray's to strike back at the parent organisation Shiv Sena.
The first indication of the rupture came on Thursday morning when BJP president Amit Shah cancelled his Mumbai visit. While the brinkmanship between state leaders of the two parties continued through the day, Sena minister in the NDA government Ananth Geethe shared the dais with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
But within an hour of the PM boarding the flight for US, the BJP made its move with the party's state unit unanimously announcing its decision to break the 25-year-old alliance with the Sena, an alliance that withstood the test of time of many years. From the Vajpayee era to Modi, the change is apparent. The Shiv Sena top leadership went into a huddle immediately with the first reaction coming from Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray's son Aditya, who tweeted, "I wish all those who wished well for the alliance, the very best. I hope sense prevails over vested interests, soon."
Waiting in the wings was the NCP, who within an hour of the SS-BJP split, decided to part ways with the Congress, also ending a 15-year-old alliance in the state and ten years at the Centre? Everything would now depend on the arithmetic of the next Assembly, the basic premise of the two junior partners in the alliances.