Even as the BJP established a full majority in Maharashtra's assembly this week and got the highest number of seats in the assembly in the recent elections, the swearing in of ministers and the process of establishing the full government, has not happened yet in the state. Speculation is on about why and how this delay is happening and it's very obvious that it is Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde whose insistence on certain portfolios has created a hurdle in the path of the BJP. Portfolio distribution has always been a problem between alliance partners in Maharashtra. Historically speaking the Congress and Sharad Pawar's NCP always fought over this issue and the same happened when the BJP and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena were in power between 2014 and 2019.
Traditionally Maharashtra always had a single party rule with the Congress party always having a clear majority in the house of 288. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the Congress had over 150 seats in the assembly but for the first time in 1995 election as the saffron alliance Shiv Sena and BJP won the assembly polls, the state saw the emergence of coalition politics. In 1995 apart from the Shiv Sena and BJP the independents won seats in large numbers and many of them had to be accommodated in the cabinet led by Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi as the Chief Minister.
It was for the first time that two large parties had to share power almost equally and had to share portfolios. A formula to achieve some balance was reached and BJP leader Gopinath Munde kept the Home and Energy portfolios. As it was the first time that the saffron alliance got power in the state there was a quick process undertaken to reach this agreement and not much bickering was seen. However when the Congress and NCP returned to power in the 1999 polls in the state, it took them weeks to decide the portfolios and a lot of pushes and pulls were seen happening. Sharad Pawar insisted on keeping Home, Finance as well as Energy portfolios and the government was established with a full portfolio distribution after a lot of uncertainty and disputes that lasted for a long time. Ever Since then the state has seen a coalition government coming to power with no single party getting full majority in the assembly.
Now after a long time as a single party, the BJP has appeared as a large group of MLAs in the assembly, reaching almost the full majority mark. The BJP has 132 of its own seats and support of five independent MLAs which means the party is only about seven or eight seats short of the majority mark. In fact the Mahayuti alliance of BJP, Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar now have a problem of plenty. All three parties in the alliance have reached a number which was not expected by either of them. BJP got 132, Ajit Pawar's party got 41 and Eknath Shinde's party got 57 MLAs which strangely and unexpectedly created some tension between the alliance partners. The BJP thought that the two alliance partners would now start demanding their pound of flesh, so the party got aggressive while Eknath Shinde has been insisting on Home and Urban Development ministries for himself. The BJP knows that for the upcoming 12 Municipal and 25 District council polls it is crucial for them to hold the Home ministry.
It was NCP founder Sharad Pawar who showed Maharashtra how Home and Finance portfolios are crucial for any political party to spread its wings in the state. In every municipal poll or district level elections two things matter, firstly the distribution of government funds for development purposes and secondly the control of the police force which is the most visible and effective arm of the government out on the field. Sharad Pawar was able to establish his party's domination in Western Maharashtra, Marathwada and North Maharashtra mainly by dominating the field through the control of Home and Finance ministries in the state. The BJP watched this closely and followed the same way of functioning. BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis alway kept the Home ministry with himself since 2014 and followed Sharad Pawar's method in many ways. Now the BJP does not want to give up control of the Home ministry. Eknath Shinde's argument on the other hand is that in the previous government, two Deputy Chief Ministers held two important ministries of Home and Finance, so the same pattern should be followed now. He has been arguing that if Ajit Pawar is going to get the Finance portfolio, then Home should be given to him.
In Maharashtra it is interesting to see how, in the absence of a powerful opposition party, two parties within the ruling alliance have become rivals or foes and are seen fighting over some issue such as portfolio distribution. As the opposition numbers are very few in the house, the ruling coalition feels that they have no threat and they are taking their time to form the full government. With two large constituents of the ruling coalition, BJP and Eknath Shinde fighting so openly over portfolio distribution, nobody can perhaps predict which way such political differences would lead to. The BJP along with Ajit Pawar has such numbers in the assembly that the stability of the government in Maharashtra is taken for granted by most observers but nobody should be surprised if we see some fireworks happening between the BJP and Shinde in the coming months.
Rohit Chandavarkar is a senior journalist who has worked for 31 years with various leading newspaper brands and television channels in Mumbai and Pune
