Uddhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena was sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Nov. 28. (Shiv Sena/Siliconeer)

With Uddhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena (Sena) sworn in as the new Chief Minister (CM) of the richest province of India, Nov. 28, the bizarre political drama that had engulfed the state polity has been put to rest, albeit for the time being, writes Priyanka Bhardwaj.

Formally he leads the Maha Vikasa Aghadi, comprising the Sena, with 56 seats, Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), with 54 seats, and, the Indian National Congress (INC), with 44 seats, bound by a Common Minimum Program, for the initial half term of two and a half years.

Since Oct. 24, when the results were declared, as the pre-poll partner and an ally of three decades of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that fell short of a majority, the Sena set off on a search for counter-allies when its demands of a rotational CM were spurned by the BJP.

But the three-week long wait to the Sena-NCP-INC coalition government was filled with twists and turns as daily dramatic political developments attracted more eyeballs than any reality show could ever, highlights being — the lifting off of President’s rule imposed on the state to facilitate midnight coup by BJP’s Deevendra Fadnavis who claimed support of rebel Ajit Pawar (nephew of senior Pawar) of the NCP with his band of legislators, Prime Minister’s congratulatory tweet informing the nation of swearing in of Fadnavis and Ajit as the new CM and Deputy CM, the opposition knocking on the doors of the Supreme Court that ordered for a live telecast of an immediate floor test, and the relentless weaning back of Ajit and the breakaway gang to come back to the parent party, isolation of MLAs by their parties in separate hotels, all of which forced Fadnavis to resign due to lack of strength.

Move on to the present, the 59 year old Thackeray, is the newly anointed CM, the 29th of in the state and a third from Sena after Manohar Joshi and Narayan Rane, with six ministers, Eknath Shinde and Subhash Desai from the Sena, Jayant Patil and Chhagan Bhujbal from the NCP, and Nitin Raut and Balasaheb Thorat from the INC to assist him, and speculation over Ajit’s role having been laid to rest with the pronouncement of his appointment as Deputy CM, given his sway over NCP MLAs.

In his first Cabinet meeting Thackeray has stressed his intentions to prioritize addressing issues of farmers who are committing suicides due to acute distress, provision of a full meal at Rs.10 and 80 percent quota for locals and domicile youth in private sector companies over and above the bullet train project to connect Ahmedabad with Mumbai.

While it remains to be seen how this coalition, in which the NCP carries more weight in comparison to the inexperienced Uddhav and is most likely to don the status of the foremost Maratha party, will survive and measure up to the pile of expectations revolving around governance, it is amply clear that the invincible tag of the mighty BJP that was reiterated when Modi 2.0 decimated the INC to bits is in question.

The “crass opportunism and horse trading” could not succeed over the regional and sub-national forces, despite their disparate ideologies” who when faced with the issue of survival coalesced to take on the mighty BJP.

Though regional grievances may differ vastly, yet there is a probability that the narrative of regional pride can gain traction over central dominance on a pan India level.

But more obvious repercussions are to the allies who stand to lose their future … with the diminishing of their ideologies and identities they are rooted in, as the CMP mandates sticking to secular value of the Preamble to the Constitution.

The extent of accommodation by the Sena, notable for its anti-immigrant and Hindutva identity, open flaunting of its hand in Babri Masjid demolition, praise of Nathuram Godse, the Mahatma Gandhi assassin, in its mouthpiece publication, Saamna, and heavy lobbied for posthumously awarding the highest civilian honour, Bharat Ratna, to Veer Vinayak Savarkar, and of the INC, rooted in Left-minority identity, may compromise its future planks.

While on the other hand the progressive NCP will be exuding maximum weight in the coalition, marching ahead in capitalizing on the newly minted status as the upholder of Maratha pride and the vanquisher of the Modi-Amit Shah combine.

The BJP smarting in its successive defeats in Punjab, Rajasthan, Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and now in Maharashtra, will not be one to sit idle, twiddling its thumbs.

Evidently, Sena has a tougher task cut out for itself and not in any measure commensurate with the dividends it may reap, a price to be paid for satiating the personal ambitions of its top leader, Uddhav.

Either he delivers on the economic front and ensures stability in inter-party ties within the Aghadi or else the BJP will be having the last laugh.