For the Shiv Sena and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), the two key regional parties in the electoral fray in Maharashtra and Haryana, respectively, the message is ominous.
The Sena, that was the senior partner in the 25-year-old Sena-BJP alliance that broke just before the elections in Maharashtra, may just have to return to that arrangement with its tail between its legs — and now as a very junior companion.
For the INLD, that had actually hoped it might come to power in Haryana, and thus become the rallying point, countrywide, for the opposition that was decimated in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, it will be time for it — and its friends in the janata parivar — who campaigned vigorously for it to rethink their strategy. They will not only have to weave together a credible message — they will also have to do business with the Congress, and vice-versa, for their own political survival.
On the one occasion in the past, when the BJP-Sena formed a government in Maharashtra together —in 1995 — it was the Sena that led the coalition with Manohar Joshi in the saddle. Not just that, at that time, it was the BJP that was seen as piggybacking the Sena in the State: that era is over, and Udhav Thackeray’s dream of becoming CM shattered with these elections.
The way in which the BJP has succeeded in winning Haryana — as the trends at the time of writing showed — and emerging as the decisive frontrunner in Maharashtra have only corroborated the results of the general elections: the Congress vs the rest era is over and it is now going to be BJP vs the rest. If the BJP juggernaut is to be halted, there is no question — all non-BJP political parties have to join hands.
Curiously, the BJP’s Vinay Sahasrabudhe aired these fears in a TV discussion on Sunday morning when he urged the Sena to stick with its old friends and not look for new ones, even as speculation grew of the possibility of a Sena-Congress-NCP combine getting together to block the BJP coming to power in Maharashtra.