Despite the histrionics of this week, the Shiv Sena and the BJP cannot afford to break their alliance. It is perhaps recognition of this reality that has led to the uneasy truce on the Chimur assembly seat that both parties were laying claim to. Both parties are so weak politically in Maharashtra today that divided they will certainly fall.

The present crisis began with the BJP insisting on contesting the Chimur by-election. The seat fell vacant when a protege of Narayan Rane resigned from the assembly to join the Congress along with his mentor. The Shiv Sena had “borrowed” the seat from the BJP in 2004; now the BJP wanted it back. But Chimur was really just an excuse. The real conflict was about seat sharing in the coming corporation elections because these will determine the stakes in 2009 when Maharashtra goes to polls. Both parties know that victory will be a Herculean task. So, the recent tensions in the alliance were really a bargaining and hedging exercise.

It is not the first time that the Sena supremo has thrown such tantrums. But in the past, the Sena was stronger and could easily assert itself with the BJP. This asymmetry in the BJP-Sena relationship was the hallmark of the alliance in the eighties. The BJP then didn’t even dare dream of coming to power. It had won only two seats in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections and its cadres were very demoralised. The Sena had the muscle power, and Thackeray was very emphatic in stating his whims. And though the Congress was in power, and probably never imagined it would be dislodged, the Sena used to rule the streets and govern the political mood. Though more pronounced in Mumbai, this aggressiveness had the rest of Maharashtra in awe of the Sena and its chief. The BJP drew its strength from Sena activists, who were either popular in their localities or could terrorise them.

... contd.