Despite making Prime Minister Narendra Modi the face of its campaign and insisting that voters should give the Bharatiya Janata Party a majority, Maharashtra still ended up with what is, as of now, a minority government. Though the two parties are still sniping at each other, it remains entirely possible that the BJP will once again tie up with the Shiv Sena, one of its oldest partners with whom it only split right before last month’s assembly elections.
So if the BJP is forced to ally with the Sena and didn’t fulfill its hopes of getting a majority by itself, was it really worth ending a decades-old alliance? That’s the question that the party is likely to be asking itself as tensions have begun to arise with the Shiromani Akali Dal, a partner that has been allied with them even longer than the BJP.
Leaders from both the BJP and the SAD, which currently run the state of Punjab in a coalition, have made noises over the last few days that their alliance is on the rocks. First the BJP’s new official in charge of Punjab affairs said that his party’s ministers and leaders aren’t getting the respect they deserve, which could easily lead to a split. The Akali Dal didn’t take long to respond, with its general secretary saying that “SAD is the mother party of Punjab and doesn’t need crutches for survival”.
Maharashtra lessons
SAD chief Parkash Singh Badal later insisted that “all is well” between the two parties, yet he wasn’t entirely convincing, considering the clamour that appears to be arising from out of the BJP’s own cadres in the state. Fortunately for the parties, elections in Punjab aren’t until 2017, giving them plenty of time to either iron out their differences or decide on a game plan.
But it also gives the BJP time to consider whether it can replicate the Maharashtra model in Punjab. Even if the Sena does end up being part of the government there, by going it alone the BJP has managed to expand its presence to cover the entire state and win seats where it had never contested before.
Of the 123 seats won by the BJP in Maharashtra, 12 of them were those that the Sena won in 2009. Meanwhile, the Sena only grabbed one seat that the BJP had won in the previous assembly polls. This allowed BJP president Amit Shah to announce that his party had taken the right decision in splitting up the partnership, because it ended up with more seats than the 119 that the Sena said it was willing to offer while alliance negotiations were still ongoing.
As the above chart shows, the net result was that the BJP had a freer hand to do what Shah has expressly announced he would like to see: his party spreading out far and wide unencumbered by large allies who are also rivals for the affections of voters. For as long as the two parties kept their seat-sharing agreement, their fortunes also went hand in hand. As soon as they split up, the BJP’s went up tremendously. Despite not getting a majority, the party was so well served by the results that the Nationalist Congress Party has offered to unconditionally give it support, allowing the BJP to dictate terms.
Punjab potential
There’s even less of a chance that the BJP will be able to get a majority in Punjab. It is, by far, the junior partner in the alliance and even Modi’s popularity is unlikely to be enough to bridge that gap, at least as far as things stand currently. In the last assembly elections, for example, the BJP only contested 23 out of a total of 117 seats, while the SAD had candidates in the remaining 94.
The make-up of the state’s electorate, if one goes by traditional analyses, also suggests it is hard for the BJP to make much headway in the state. The saffron party relies on the Hindu population, about 35% of the state, for its votes. The SAD on the other hand appeals to the majority Sikh community, covering 60% of the population. Conventional wisdom suggests the BJP is unlikely to get much crossover even with Modi’s popularity, so shooting for a majority might not make sense.
But this doesn’t mean the party will settle for whatever the SAD currently doles out to it. The Sikh-Hindu population isn’t perfectly split by constituency, and the BJP across the country feels now is the time to take advantage of Modi’s popularity to expand. And of course, there’s also the disenchantment against the SAD itself, as demonstrated in the vote share chart above.
So while the BJP might not think it can win anything close to a simple majority in the state, just as it might not have realistically expected 145 seats in Maharashtra, it knows that this is the moment to push the envelope at least and grab as much space as is within its reach.
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
So if the BJP is forced to ally with the Sena and didn’t fulfill its hopes of getting a majority by itself, was it really worth ending a decades-old alliance? That’s the question that the party is likely to be asking itself as tensions have begun to arise with the Shiromani Akali Dal, a partner that has been allied with them even longer than the BJP.
Leaders from both the BJP and the SAD, which currently run the state of Punjab in a coalition, have made noises over the last few days that their alliance is on the rocks. First the BJP’s new official in charge of Punjab affairs said that his party’s ministers and leaders aren’t getting the respect they deserve, which could easily lead to a split. The Akali Dal didn’t take long to respond, with its general secretary saying that “SAD is the mother party of Punjab and doesn’t need crutches for survival”.
Maharashtra lessons
SAD chief Parkash Singh Badal later insisted that “all is well” between the two parties, yet he wasn’t entirely convincing, considering the clamour that appears to be arising from out of the BJP’s own cadres in the state. Fortunately for the parties, elections in Punjab aren’t until 2017, giving them plenty of time to either iron out their differences or decide on a game plan.
But it also gives the BJP time to consider whether it can replicate the Maharashtra model in Punjab. Even if the Sena does end up being part of the government there, by going it alone the BJP has managed to expand its presence to cover the entire state and win seats where it had never contested before.
Of the 123 seats won by the BJP in Maharashtra, 12 of them were those that the Sena won in 2009. Meanwhile, the Sena only grabbed one seat that the BJP had won in the previous assembly polls. This allowed BJP president Amit Shah to announce that his party had taken the right decision in splitting up the partnership, because it ended up with more seats than the 119 that the Sena said it was willing to offer while alliance negotiations were still ongoing.
As the above chart shows, the net result was that the BJP had a freer hand to do what Shah has expressly announced he would like to see: his party spreading out far and wide unencumbered by large allies who are also rivals for the affections of voters. For as long as the two parties kept their seat-sharing agreement, their fortunes also went hand in hand. As soon as they split up, the BJP’s went up tremendously. Despite not getting a majority, the party was so well served by the results that the Nationalist Congress Party has offered to unconditionally give it support, allowing the BJP to dictate terms.
Punjab potential
There’s even less of a chance that the BJP will be able to get a majority in Punjab. It is, by far, the junior partner in the alliance and even Modi’s popularity is unlikely to be enough to bridge that gap, at least as far as things stand currently. In the last assembly elections, for example, the BJP only contested 23 out of a total of 117 seats, while the SAD had candidates in the remaining 94.
The make-up of the state’s electorate, if one goes by traditional analyses, also suggests it is hard for the BJP to make much headway in the state. The saffron party relies on the Hindu population, about 35% of the state, for its votes. The SAD on the other hand appeals to the majority Sikh community, covering 60% of the population. Conventional wisdom suggests the BJP is unlikely to get much crossover even with Modi’s popularity, so shooting for a majority might not make sense.
But this doesn’t mean the party will settle for whatever the SAD currently doles out to it. The Sikh-Hindu population isn’t perfectly split by constituency, and the BJP across the country feels now is the time to take advantage of Modi’s popularity to expand. And of course, there’s also the disenchantment against the SAD itself, as demonstrated in the vote share chart above.
So while the BJP might not think it can win anything close to a simple majority in the state, just as it might not have realistically expected 145 seats in Maharashtra, it knows that this is the moment to push the envelope at least and grab as much space as is within its reach.
