End of alliance with Shiv Sena speaks of BJP’s recent propensity to convert friends into foes

In the end, the stalemate in Maharashtra will force everyone to get off their high-horse and introspect. More importantly, it’s bound to compel the BJP to soften its rhetoric and start addressing real issues like the state of the economy and growing unemployment.

Maharashtra Assembly elections, Maharashtra Assembly elections 2019, Maharashtra Assembly polls, Maharashtra elections, Maharashtra polls, Maharashtra BJP, Shiv Sena, Elections news, Indian Express

Though the Sena-BJP stayed loyal to each other for nearly three decades, of late there were indications that major fissures were developing in the saffron alliance. (Express Photo by Prashant Nadkar)

Tired of his wife’s constant bickering, a husband loses his cool and tells her, “I won’t mind killing myself, but I will make you a widow”. This popular anecdote, that speaks about a section of the argumentative Marathi manoos, also sums up the Shiv Sena’s — that claims to be the custodian of Marathi interests — current predicament. The Sena may have been successful in robbing its senior partner, the BJP, of the chance to be in office in Maharashtra for the time being. But in the bargain, it has also exposed itself to an existential challenge. The political situation in Maharashtra also indicates how history repeats itself. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was anti-Congressism which brought political forces of all hues together, that has now been replaced by anti-BJPism.