Maharashtra
Newspaper reports have cited “a grievance letter posted on X (formerly Twitter) on March 4 as providing an insight into the tussle within the ruling Mahayuti alliance. The Shiv Sena (Shinde) is demanding 22 seats, the NCP (Ajit Pawar) has staked claim to at least 10, and the BJP wants “at least 30 seats”.
A letter from senior BJP leader Harshavardhan Patil to party colleague Devendra Fadnavis alluded to a ‘sinister’ political campaign by NCP workers in Indapur, one of the six assembly constituencies that make up the Baramati Lok Sabha seat. “While I am working under your leadership in the political and social spheres in my taluk, some office-bearers from our allied parties are making objectionable statements against me in public rallies in Indapur, using foul language. I am worried about my safety as they are threatening not to allow me to roam around Indapur during elections,” stated the letter, urging Fadnavis to take “a firm stand” to nip “hooligan tendencies” in the bud.
A Mid-day report on page one anticipates a clean run for the BJP in seat-sharing talks, with fighting the maximum ever, around “34-35 of the 48 seats.” It reports that Amit Shah may have spooked the truncated Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and truncated NCP (Ajit Pawar) into believing that their popularity stands diminished having left the founder’s parties respectively and walked off and joined the BJP.
Shinde and Ajit Pawar had been “flexing their muscle” as of late, wanting the number of seats that their undivided parties contested last time, but it seems the BJP wants to maximise its own numbers. Devendra Fadnavis is cited as saying the “media” must not indulge in “kite flying”.
#WireTake: Maharashtra is very tricky for the BJP. This is where the party has tried twice in the past decade, and not via elections, to wrest power, once unsuccessfully when Ajit Pawar went back after being sworn in, but the second time successfully when Shinde and hordes of MLAs were flown to Guwahati and the regime toppled. There is, though, no electoral reckoning yet of what has happened. Bombay municipal elections have been on hold and Maharashtra has earned the dubious record of not having a single elected official. The Hindustan Times reported on January 4, “as 2023 drew to a close, so did the terms of two of Maharashtra’s municipal corporations — Ahmednagar and Dhule. These were the last two local bodies with elected officials. As of today, there is not a single elected body in all of the state’s 27 municipal corporations. This means that the total budget — a whopping ₹1,10,556 crore — is under the indirect control of the state government through its appointed ‘administrators’.”
Odisha
After accusing each other of spreading “rumours” of an alliance, speculation over the BJP and the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) “forging a formal alliance for the coming elections” was back on the table with many newspaper reports with details on what may be going on. The Hindu says that both parties on Wednesday “held hectic deliberations at their own levels to smoothen rough edges.”
Neither side came out with a statement giving any clarity on the proposed alliance. After a three and a half hour-long meeting of senior BJD leaders at the residence of Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, there appear to be enough indications about formal alliance clicking. “In the discussions, it was resolved that since by 2036, Odisha will complete 100 years of its statehood and the BJD and the Chief Minister have major milestones to be achieved by this time, therefore the BJD will do everything towards this in the greater interests of people of Odisha and the State,” BJD vice-president Debi Prasad Mishra said in a statement. Former Union tribal affairs minister Jual Oram is reported as saying the state unit of the BJP had proposed to go it alone in the elections “but, it was up to the Central leadership to take a final call.”
#WireTake: This, if it happens would mean BJD teaming up with BJP after a gap of 15 years. This may leave the Congress as the sole significant opposition party in the state. The party’s turnaround in Telangana, where rumours of a hidden alliance between the ruling BRS and BJP had helped it storm to power, has created tension on the east coast where each state has a local regional party with an ambiguous relationship with the BJP. BJD formalising its ties so close to the general elections would make it a clear contest for the Congress to make gains in. BJP-BJD may be calculating the reverse, as one where they can dominate the discourse completely by coming together. BJP has eight seats of the 21 seats in the state. State polls will also be held simultaneously.
