Maharashtra needs governance
Reporters Name | CAMIL PARKHE | Sunday, 30 November 2014 AT 10:55 AM IST
To the relief of people in Maharashtra, the BJP leadership has finally started negotiations with its estranged ally, the Shiv Sena, for sharing power in the state. This is expected to end the over a month-long period of political uncertainty in the state. The previous month had witnessed an unprecedented show of political opportunism and vendetta by some parties with total disregard to the interests of the state or the mandate given by the electorates in the recent state assembly elections.
The people's verdict was clearly against the 15-year-old regime of the Congress-NCP front government and largely in favour of the BJP, next followed by the Shiv Sena. Notwithstanding the inevitable political abuses and skirmishes during the hustings, it was expected that the BJP and Shiv Sena would once again come together to form the next government after the fractured poll verdict.
But the BJP fell prey to the shrewd game of unconditional support played by the Nationalist Congress Party and naively thought that it can do without Shiv Sena to form a stable government.
It took over a month for the BJP to know that the NCP's unconditional support will not be without any conditions. But as Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis himself has admitted the BJP had to pay a very heavy price for surviving the trust motion with the support of the NCP. The sharp social media reactions indicated that many people who voted against the Congress-NCP front have not taken very kindly to the BJP's plans to provide a stable government with the NCP's support. It is another matter that those voters who gave the NCP 40 assembly seats may have also been shocked to see the party backing the BJP. Soon after the polls, the people in the state had to witness political ideologies and principles taking a back seat when it came to the politics of power.
What was worse that governance and administration have been totally ignored during the past few weeks with only 10 BJP ministers managing the show on an ad hoc basis. Perhaps this scenario could have lasted longer if the winter session of the state legislature was not so imminent.
It will be in the larger interest of the state that both the BJP and Shiv Sena keep aside their animosities and provide a stable coalition government at the earliest. Most important, both parties should shun outsmarting each other for the next five years. The people in the state have voted in favour of change, better and transparent governance. Their hopes should not be belied.
