(Indian Express
March 21, 2007)
To invest in future, Sena chief woos NCP: join hands
Rakshit Sonawane / Mahesh Mhatre
Posted online: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print Email
Mumbai, March 20: When Bal Thackeray used a book-release function at his home today to declare that a Shiv Sena alliance with NCP could work wonders for Maharashtra, he was not just reiterating an old view. Timed as it was with NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s statement of being open to tie-ups with any party and days after the NCP joined hands with the Sena to keep out the Congress in the Pune municipal corporation, Thackeray was outlining future possibilities.
“Pawar is an old friend and I have been saying that if the two parties come together, we can do a lot in the state... it will be in the interest of Maharashtra’s development,” Thackeray said. “We have an alliance with the BJP, but I don’t think there is any need to consult them (the BJP). I am open for an alignment with the NCP.”
Thackeray has in the past made overtures to the NCP. In 2005, at the release of his photo-biography edited by nephew Raj Thackeray, he had publicly asked Pawar to join hands with the Sena for the welfare of the state. Pawar, who was present at the function, had rejected the offer. Later, in 2006, Thackeray had written an editorial in the Sena mouthpiece, Saamna, advocating the need for the Sena and the NCP to join hands.
What adds significance to Thackeray’s remarks now is that they come three days after Pawar’s statement at Baramati that “I am open for alliance with any party, including the Shiv Sena.” Pawar’s overtures towards the Sena came after the formalisation of an alliance between the two in the Pune municipal corporation.
This arrangement could well be replicated in elections for zilla parishad presidents in towns like Nanded (where Congress minister Ashok Chavan is the NCP rival) and Chandrapur (where Naresh Puglia of Congress is seen as a stumbling block by the NCP).
The “declarations of friendship” have also coincided with the results of elections to 27 zilla parishads in which the Congress managed to increase its tally, though marginally, over the NCP. Of the 1,647 seats, the Congress won 487, while the NCP took 480 seats.
The NCP emerged as the single largest party in the last Assembly elections (winning 71 seats in the House of 288, while the Congress won 68). But in the last two years, the Congress tally has jumped to 73, making it the largest party, courtesy former Sena leader Narayan Rane who defected to Congress and engineered the crossover of Sena MLAs. For the NCP, the rise of the Congress is alarming as both rely on the same votebank.
That Thackeray and Pawar are friends has been proved a number times. In June last year, the NCP joined hands with the Sena and the BJP to get industrialist Rahul Bajaj elected to the Rajya Sabha, ensuring the defeat of the official Congress nominee Avinash Pande.
In September last year, when Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule filed papers for the Rajya Sabha, she was elected unopposed as the Opposition led by the Sena did not field a candidate. Thackeray had then blessed her candidature, recalling how Pawar had once dropped by for dinner with Supriya.
Since the dynamics of a local bodies’ elections is entirely different from Assembly or Lok Sabha elections, there have been unusual alliances in the past — the Sena-BJP forming alliances with either the Congress or the Sena.
But the situation is different now. The Sena, shattered by revolts of Raj Thackeray and Narayan Rane, needs to consolidate its position before the Assembly polls in 2009. The Sena is also having problems with its ally BJP, especially after the death of Pramod Mahajan. The NCP too has problems with ally Congress which is gaining in numbers.
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