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BJP's 3 steps for freedom from Sena

Shounak Nachare in Bombay

The Bharatiya Janata Party, at loggerheads with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra over the former's shift away from Hindutva, may be just three steps away from severing ties with its alliance partner.

The three steps, and these have the potential of bringing about a seismic change in Maharashtra's politics, comprise three civic elections - Kalyan-Dombivli, Thane and Bombay. If the BJP manages to contest these elections independent of Sena and with a fair amount of success, it would be ready to chart its own political destiny in the state.

The first step has already been taken. Gopinath Munde recently attacked the Sena at a campaign rally in Kalyan-Dombivli. "The Sena's Hindutva is fake. Where does its Hindutva disappear when Hindus are massacred in Kashmir? It comes to the fore only when the Sena chief is arrested," Munde said.

The last step - the Bombay Municipal Corporation election - would, however, be the toughest. A true test of whether the BJP is ready to step out of Sena's shadow.

The Shiv Sena and BJP have never made a consensual club. Battles between the two -- real and rhetorical -- have raged every now and then; mud-slinging has been the norm rather than the exception; but there had always been the common thread of Hindutva to stitch matters up, whether behind closed doors or in full public view.

But now there has appeared a new faultline in the very foundation of the alliance. The BJP has dropped the Hindutva coin, and its jangle is giving the alliance jitters.

Newly elected BJP president Bangaru Laxman's call to partymen to "wade through mohallas to win the support of Muslims who are the blood of our blood" has generated a lot of bad blood between the alliance partners.

"He's not Bangaru Laxman, he's Baangmaru Laxman," the Shiv Sena chief, Bal Thackeray, reacted recently. Baangmaru is Marathi for the muezzin who gives the call for namaaz in mosques.

"I don't understand why they're running after Muslims. Muslims will gobble them up. But the Sena will never give up on Hindutva. I don't care if I don't get votes and power. I also don't care if the Sena-BJP bond breaks," Thackeray said.

Big talk...but precipitating matters at this stage would entail a bigger risk for the Sena than for the BJP. The Sena's stock was never so low as it is today. It's political strength is depleted, its party organisation is in disarray and its place in the muddle of Maharashtra politics unsteady.

If the Sena were to cut off ties with the BJP now, it would mean withdrawal from the Central government, where it has three Cabinet members. That done, the party would lose its share of power in Delhi, without any threat to the Centre's stability. In the state it's already out of power.

By going it alone, the Sena may attempt to fill the space on the right vacated by the BJP and hope to wean away disgruntled elements of the Sangh Parivar and other Hindutva hardliners who are obviously upset with the BJP's abandonment of three core issues: Ayodhya, abrogation of Article 370 and Common Civil Code.

It did this successfully between 1985 and '89, all on its own steam, and rose phenomenally thanks to the saffron wave. Today's political scenario can't easily guarantee that kind of success, because there is no Hindutva wave. It would first have to be created, then built on, and then spread. That's a huge risk for an organisation with a demoralised cadre and a sunken image.

Knowing this, Thackeray kept mum when his men at the Centre did not get the ministries asked for. When things got too uncomfortable, he made noises but silenced himself again after Advani and Vajpayee gave him mere assurances.

But the, one can not disregard a potent factor: Thackeray's idiosyncracies that drive him often to take impulsive decisions. The BJP, it appears, may just be hoping for such impulsiveness on his part.

It is in a vantage position. It is common knowledge that it has "strayed" too close to Thackeray's arch foe Sharad Pawar and his Nationalist Congress Party. It is also common knowledge that had it not been for the BJP's unwillingness, the Sena-BJP would already have been in power in Maharashtra. Above all, the BJP does not need the Sena any more. The purpose of the saffron alliance was to hitchhike on the Sena's back and facilitate establishment of the party's base in various parts of the state. This has been done; the BJP is now firmly entrenched in the state; and if needed, another partner is ready.

Also, BJP leaders say the party is finding the alliance embarrassing to maintain. "Frankly, we are sick of the Sena. Its goondaism is hurting our image, so are other charges against it like extortion and corruption. Its image has taken a bad beating, its assets have reduced to a minimum. Why should we carry with us a liability?" a top BJP leader and wannabe CM said.

The BJP will not rush matters because even without doing so, it is gradually gaining ground in the state only at the cost of the Sena. But it won't stay unmoved. Apart from clandestine tie-ups with other parties, it has chalked out a proper plan to take on the Sena.

If the BJP deserts the Sena now, the Sena can 1) withdraw from the Centre, which won't affect the government but will send a wrong message and encourage other unhappy NDA allies, 2) put up a good electoral and party-level fight and likely beat BJP and 3) tell the voters they've been cheated because they were asked to vote for the alliance during assembly polls and not individually for Sena or BJP.

The party has also taken another vital point into consideration: the ageing of Thackeray. The Sena has an uncanny knack of bouncing back just when it has been written off -- it has done this thrice, against major odds -- but the tiger's ageing may well frustrate the Sena's efforts this time around.

The BJP also knows that as Vajpayee grows more powerful, the Sena-BJP bond will get increasingly brittle, because Thackeray does not enjoy a good rapport with the prime minister. With Advani he has an excellent equation, a near-marriage of minds, but Vajpayee is another kind altogether. The Advani-Thackeray knot for some time cemented the Sena-BJP tie-up, but now Vajpayee calls the shots in the BJP and government and Advani is decidedly mum and backstage on all issues.

Then there's the contentious issue of Vidarbha. The BJP is in favour of a separate state of Vidarbha, and the Sena is dead against bifurcation of Maharashtra. Vidarbha will soon surely snowball into a major issue, and like Hindutva, it could be just about be enough for the alliance to crack.

With even the bonding adhesive of power -- the last hope for the alliance -- absent, the balancing act is getting tougher. Either the Sena will pull out and take a big risk, or the BJP, far more comfortable than its partner today, will snap ties in another couple of years. Either way, the alliance is not going to last long.

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