When the alliances did finally break, it came as something of an anticlimax. Thursday evening saw the tepid dissolution of the two longstanding political alliances in Maharashtra politics, the 25-year association between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena, and the 15-year combine between the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.
The alliances have served all four parties well. The NCP may have found comfort with the BJP and even the Shiv Sena in the past, but for many years it made sense to be closer to the Congress. That is, until the vaunted Modi wave struck Maharashtra as well.
The Mahayuti
Whenever this phase of Indian political history is documented, the BJP-Sena "mahayuti" will be considered a textbook example of a solid electoral alliance. Over the years, both made genuine compromises in the interests of unity, though there were murmurs of discontentment ahead of every election. The same can’t be said of the other alliance. Through the last decade-and-a-half, the NCP has viewed the Congress with suspicion, and the favour has been returned.
There have been a few verbal blows exchanged already between members of each of the four parties, but it is more than likely that both sets will renew their partnerships after the results are announced on October 19. That is unless the NCP, headed by the canny Sharad Pawar, chooses to get into bed with whichever of the saffron parties performs better.
So who benefits?
The alliances have performed well politically in Maharashtra, never threatening to derail the administration, as has often been the case at the centre. Though the Shiv Sena and NCP are regional players, they have shown themselves not to be regressive when in power, apart from odd bouts of anti-Pakistan sloganeering or moral policing.
These alliances broke down on Thursday because they were unable to come to mutually agreeable seat-sharing formulae for October's assembly polls. The BJP, buoyed by its success in the Lok Sabha polls, wanted more. With Congress fortunes on the wane the NCP, which has always felt it gets a raw deal in this equation, felt it was time to assert itself.
Who stands to gain the most? No one, really. In fact each of the parties could be exposed. The Congress and NCP will not fare as badly as they did in the Lok Sabha polls, and even a highly successful visit to the United States will not give Modi and the BJP the momentum they had a few months back.
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The alliances have served all four parties well. The NCP may have found comfort with the BJP and even the Shiv Sena in the past, but for many years it made sense to be closer to the Congress. That is, until the vaunted Modi wave struck Maharashtra as well.
The Mahayuti
Whenever this phase of Indian political history is documented, the BJP-Sena "mahayuti" will be considered a textbook example of a solid electoral alliance. Over the years, both made genuine compromises in the interests of unity, though there were murmurs of discontentment ahead of every election. The same can’t be said of the other alliance. Through the last decade-and-a-half, the NCP has viewed the Congress with suspicion, and the favour has been returned.
There have been a few verbal blows exchanged already between members of each of the four parties, but it is more than likely that both sets will renew their partnerships after the results are announced on October 19. That is unless the NCP, headed by the canny Sharad Pawar, chooses to get into bed with whichever of the saffron parties performs better.
So who benefits?
The alliances have performed well politically in Maharashtra, never threatening to derail the administration, as has often been the case at the centre. Though the Shiv Sena and NCP are regional players, they have shown themselves not to be regressive when in power, apart from odd bouts of anti-Pakistan sloganeering or moral policing.
These alliances broke down on Thursday because they were unable to come to mutually agreeable seat-sharing formulae for October's assembly polls. The BJP, buoyed by its success in the Lok Sabha polls, wanted more. With Congress fortunes on the wane the NCP, which has always felt it gets a raw deal in this equation, felt it was time to assert itself.
Who stands to gain the most? No one, really. In fact each of the parties could be exposed. The Congress and NCP will not fare as badly as they did in the Lok Sabha polls, and even a highly successful visit to the United States will not give Modi and the BJP the momentum they had a few months back.