Amid the continuing speculation about a mid-term poll at the Centre, one thing is certain: a state that is bound to experience the most political turmoil is Maharashtra. Incidentally, assembly polls are due here — alongwith Lok Sabha polls, if they are held on schedule — in 2009.

Ever since the Vilasrao Deshmukh government assumed office in the state in 2004, discontent simmers among the partners of the secular alliance, the Congress and NCP, as well as in the saffron alliance, the Shiv Sena and BJP.

The Congress and NCP may be partners in the Democratic Front (DF) government, but they are also rivals for the same votebank. In the 2004 assembly polls, the NCP emerged as the single-largest party with 71 members; the Congress won 68 in the House of 288. It took over a month’s deliberations for them to form the government. The Congress got the chief minister’s chair, while the NCP got more ministerial berths and important portfolios. But the ‘secular’ allies could not arrive at a consensus on sharing political appointments — of special executive officers, official committees from the district-level upwards, and state-run corporations. Those issues still lie under the carpet, where they were swept in 2004.

About two years ago, Narayan Rane — then a trusted aide of Sena chief Bal Thackeray — raised the flag of revolt against Thackeray’s son and executive president of the party, Uddhav. Rane quit as Sena leader and was sacked. He got re-elected on a Congress ticket. He also engineered defections of seven Sena MLAs, out of which six got re-elected on Congress tickets, increasing the Congress numbers to 75, thereby upstaging the NCP as No 1. Being the chief minister in 1999 (during Sena-BJP rule), Rane is considered a threat to Deshmukh and is cheered on by the anti-Deshmukh camp led by Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Prabha Rau and AICC in-charge of the state, Margaret Alva.

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