Maharashtra mess

The resignation of Uddhav Thackeray as Maharashtra Chief Minister has brought down the curtain on the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, which barely managed to complete half a term. The Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress dispensation had been skating on thin ice for quite a while and the crisis came to a head when senior Sena leader Eknath Shinde revolted against Uddhav. The CM’s position became untenable when the majority of the Sena MLAs joined the rebel camp, making it a win-win situation for the BJP, which had been keenly waiting to go in for the kill.

Sheer opportunism, which had led to the formation of the MVA government, has also caused its downfall. The BJP had comfortably emerged as the single largest party after the October 2019 Assembly elections, having won 105 seats in the 288-member House. The Shiv Sena, which bagged only 56 seats, unreasonably insisted on a bigger share of the power pie; its main demand was that the CM’s chair should be shared on a rotational basis. The BJP refused to relent, forcing the Sena to part ways and tie up with the NCP and the Congress, which had won 54 and 44 seats, respectively. It was an unlikely alliance of three parties that had virtually nothing in common except their unabashed greed for power. Showing blatant disregard for the people’s mandate, the Sena took over the reins of a government that looked fragile and vulnerable right from the outset.

Be it due to Uddhav’s failure to keep his flock together or Shinde’s success as a wheeler-dealer, Maharashtra again finds itself at the crossroads. Indian politics is no stranger to immoral practices of elected representatives, but the collapse of one state government after another in recent years — Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Puducherry and now Maharashtra — is fast eroding the relevance of elections. The ease with which MLAs are able to circumvent the anti-defection law shows how flawed it is. These are alarming portents for our democracy as well as constitutional values.

#Maharashtra #shiv sena #uddhav thackeray