The Onset of Maha Vikas Aghadi’s Inevitable Disintegration
On 21st June, the Mumbai Congress chief Bhai Jagtap confirmed that it will contest the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections alone and not with the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance.
Shiv Sena MLA Pratap Sarnaik in a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has asked him to ally with the BJP like they previously had. Sarnaik mentions that it will discard the party leaders from getting harassed by continuous agency investigations imposed on them.
“It is better to join hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi again as Shiv Sainiks feel that it would save the Sena leaders like me, Anil Parab and Ravindra Waikar from problems caused by the Central agencies.” - Sarnaik.
Uddhav Thackeray, the current Chief Minister of Maharashtra and the leader of the MVA alliance said “If a party says that it wants to contest elections on its own without joining hands with others, it should first generate confidence among the public of its ability to provide jobs.”
There are more rifts taking place between the alliance leaders mentioning each other without taking names. “Some political parties in Maharashtra are speaking of fighting polls on their own. That is their lookout. But let there be no confusion on this count. One leader [Nana Patole] of that party says that it will fight on its own, while other leaders of that party say the opposite. So, such parties must first come out of their own confusion and then talk about how to fight the election,” says Sanjay Raut of Shiv Sena with a clear mind knowing that certain high ranking members of his party want an alliance with the current opposition BJP.
With the election set to go off in less than eight months (in February 2022) will the alliance see more fractures in itself? Many have said the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance will meet an eventual and inevitable demise because the political interests of all the three parties are very different from one another not even mentioning the ideologies and voter base. It was an unlikely alliance and has managed to survive so far but now the echelon of the alliance is throwing shade at each other in embarrassing ways.
With these wide ranges of emotions and opinions between party leaders, the alliance doesn't have a strong foothold as it did before. This recent stir will lead to something that won't be in the interest of Uddhav Thackeray as the leader of the MVA alliance. This also gives BJP, the MVA’s opposition a breath of fresh air and more room to work in these eight months.
Sanjay Raut did say the alliance will remain strong in the state as a whole, but till when? Are these the first stages of an inevitable collapse of an unlikely alliance? “Attempts to create a rift among the ruling allies — Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress — will not work. The bond between the three parties is strong. All of us are also working to strengthen our respective party organisations,” Sena MP Sanjay Raut told the media simultaneously making statements about other leaders in the alliance. The contradictory statements make the rifts seem more visible and outright.
Sharad Pawar, Sonia Gandhi and Uddhav Thackeray have to think carefully about this moving forward as they know for sure any minor rift can be seen as a weakness. With Congress’ desire to go solo in future polls in Maharashtra and Nana Patole saying it is not a permanent alliance; it looks like the MVA is a ticking time bomb that the leaders will have to defuse or it will detonate leading to the disintegration of the state-wide political coalition.
