Sena’s deteriorating relations with ally BJP come to the fore after Congress wins 73 seats out of 81 in former CM Ashok Chavan’s stronghold Nanded.
Mumbai: The Shiv Sena suffered a drubbing in the polls to the civic body of Nanded, a city in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region. But the party is an exultant mood – at its ally BJP’s defeat and ‘enemy’ Congress’s landslide victory.
The Congress won 73 seats in the 81-member corporation, vastly improving its tally from 41. The BJP won six seats as compared to two earlier, while the Shiv Sena slipped from having 14 corporators to just one.
A day after the results, the Sena, in its mouthpiece publication, Saamana, hailed the Congress for halting the BJP’s winning streak in elections. “The election result sends a strong message across the country that the BJP can be defeated,” it said in an editorial.
The Sena said the verdict was extremely shocking for the BJP, which harbours dreams of making India ‘Congress-free’, and has breathed fresh life into the Congress in Maharashtra.
“The loss is not a small one. The defeat is similar to the way the Aam Aadmi Party triumphed over the BJP in the Delhi assembly election. BJP leaders were proclaiming that following Latur, the party will win the Nanded polls too, and have its mayor in the city. They stocked up godowns with fireworks to celebrate the victory. But, all their dreams were shattered,” the editorial stated.
BJP’s aggressive campaign
The election to the Nanded-Waghala municipal corporation was significant as the city remains one of the last citadels of the Congress in Maharashtra. It is the constituency of former CM Ashok Chavan, also the Maharashtra Congress chief.
Hoping to send a strong message of Congress decimation, the BJP campaigned aggressively, levying fresh graft allegations against Chavan, reminding voters of the Adarsh Housing Society scam, and inducting leaders from other parties, including Sena legislator Pratap Chikhlikar.
Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, in his campaign speech at Nanded, also slammed the Shiv Sena as the “B-team of the Congress in Nanded”, alleging a nexus between the two parties.
‘Stronger Congress good for Sena’
Despite being part of the National Democratic Alliance and partners in the ruling BJP-led Maharashtra government, relations between the Shiv Sena and the BJP have been increasingly choppy. From having an upper hand in the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, the Sena was reduced to being a junior partner after the 2014 assembly polls, and is constantly threatened by the BJP trying to expand its presence on Sena’s home turf.
The BJP has clinched victory in most elections to municipal corporations, councils and zilla parishads in Maharashtra ever since. In the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai elections earlier this year, Shiv Sena’s bastion of Mumbai too, the BJP came uncomfortably close to the Sena, falling just two seats short.
A senior Sena legislator, who did not wish to be named, said a stronger Congress in Maharashtra would be indirectly helpful for the Shiv Sena.
“It is clear that the BJP not only wants a Congress-free Maharashtra, but also wants to diminish us here. In parts of the state such as Konkan, where the Sena is very strong, the BJP will never be able to dislodge us. Wherever we are weak, such as the Vidarbha region, we are investing in growing our presence and creating strong leaders. Meanwhile, it is definitely beneficial for the Shiv Sena if the Congress strengthens in Maharashtra to keep the BJP at bay,” the MLA said.
Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut, a Rajya Sabha MP, said, the Congress’s decisive success showed that the vote was in its favour, but also anti-BJP.
“Nanded is the political centre of Marathwada, so the result sends a strong message,” he said. “The BJP’s sins for electoral gains such as inducting goons and defectors are worse than what the Congress does. Ultimately, it is the BJP’s effort to marginalise the Shiv Sena that is going to cause the BJP’s downfall.”
Pratap Sarnaik, Shiv Sena legislator from Thane, said: “More than anything else, the Nanded result has shown that the BJP can be defeated if people are convinced of a strong alternative of party and leader.”
He added: “There is discontent, but people are accepting Narendra Modi today only because there is no alternative. The situation in the state is no different.”