The fact behind the pact

Who between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena, has won the battle but lost in the truce? Political analysts, party workers and their bosses have their own takes about the arrangement. Analysts seem confused, and party workers divided in their perspectives. Sena and BJP leaders have been independently telling their worried cadres that they haven't committed harakiri in going together for the Lok Sabha, Assembly and all other elections in Maharashtra.

A more interesting phase lies ahead for the two parties when they sit together to share seats and resolve clashes that arise because of local interests and pressure from the top. A mystery over the chief minister's post should remain a blind spot in the journey that the two parties have embarked on together. Blind spots are where the travellers meet with an accident.

In a blah blah moment, the Sena and BJP said that Hindutva, the need for fighting terrorism, mitigating the agrarian crisis, and the people's wish for the union of nationalist parties, brought them back in an alliance which had been severed because of some misunderstanding. In reality, it was the urgency to beat the united front of the opposition. Staking claim to form the next governments in the Centre and Maharashtra precedes any other agenda that the parties have been bragging about since the declaration last Monday.

Why must they be together
For Lok Sabha elections, the saffron alliance is unlikely to face obstacles except for some places that could be exchanged between them. The alignments for the seats that were fought in 2014 should remain unchanged though some candidates will change for both parties. The BJP's hunch is that the senior leaders who have had a good stint in state politics should be more likely to win than some MPs who were elected in the Modi wave but did not prove promising. Don't be surprised if veterans such as Eknath Khadse (Raver), Girish Bapat (Pune), Subhash Deshmukh (Solapur) etc are fielded to make sure that Maharashtra sends as many MPs to Modi's aid.

Maharashtra has the second largest strength of Lok Sabha MPs (48) after Uttar Pradesh. BJP president Amit Shah has set an onerous task of winning 45 seats, three more than 2014's kitty from Maharashtra. Very demanding for the BJP cadre. This is good news for the Sena because this time it is the BJP that needs Sena's MPs more, and it should be seen backing the Thackerays like never before.

Smaller allies wary
Smaller allies of the BJP are in a quandary. They feel ignored in the pre-poll alliance. The BJP said it would allot seats to the allies first and the Sena should follow suit, if it has any allies. The two will then divide the remaining seats between them. Republican Party's splinter leader, Ramdas Athawale, wants a ticket from Mumbai South-Central Lok Sabha constituency as BJP's ally, but Sena won't vacate it.

If he gets to contest from Baramati against Supriya Sule, Mahadev Jankar, state minister, would most probably be asked to contest on the BJP symbol this time. Another ally, Vinayak Mete has no stakes whatsoever in the Lok Sabha. Minister of state Sadabhau Khot, who split Raju Shetti's farmers' party to side with the BJP, expects something more in bargain.

Was it ever BJP vs Sena?
Some findings of the 2014 Assembly results throw up surprises and explain why the BJP and Sena came together after fighting separately. It is not because of the division of Hindutva votes, but because they have a common rival in the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party. Digging deeper shows that the BJP won more seats in a direct fight with the Congress in a quadrangular contest. Likewise, the Sena bagged more seats against NCP in a straight fight.

The Congress won 42 in which NCP finished second at just 4, while in NCP's 41 victories only in 7 had Congress finished in the second place. The votes the BJP and Sena polled together in 2014 were more than the total of the Congress and NCP's vote shares. BJP snatched a mere 13 sitting seats from the Sena while the ruling party's major share came by beating the Congress, and partly the NCP. It would be interesting to see how these 13 seats are shared for the October polls. No wonder, politics continues to be a game without rules in place, leaving decision-making to the regulator - the people who vote.

Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

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