The Bharatiya Janata Party’s outreach to its disgruntled allies could not have come at a better time. Party president Amit Shah meets Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and Shiromani Akali chief Parkash Singh Badal to sort out differences that have recently cropped up. With less than a year to go for the Lok Sabha election, it is imperative for the BJP to shore up its existing alliances and build new ones.
This is especially so when the opposition parties are engaged in working out a united front to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party in a determined bid to deny the incumbent regime at the Centre a second term. While the Shiv Sena has already announced that it would contest the general election as an opponent to the BJP, the doors of a rapprochement have not been fully shut; the Sena still remains a partner of the BJP in Governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra. Everything depends on the talks that Shah is slated to have with Thackeray. Ideologically, the Sena is more aligned with the BJP than it is with any other party and, therefore, a continuing partnership between the two should not be an issue at least on the ideological front. Both the Sena and the BJP are aware of the challenges they face in Maharashtra in the form of the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine, and their task of countering that would be made that much more difficult if they contest as rivals to each other.
Unfortunately, the Shiv Sena has in the last four years, and especially after it contested the Assembly election on its own and lost against the BJP, been provocative, targeting jibes at not just the BJP but the Prime Minister as well. Friction between the two have only worsened over the months, leading to the Sena and the BJP fighting against each other for the Palghar Lok Sabha seat in the by-poll — which the BJP won. The Akali Dal also has a grouse; it believes that the BJP has not given its allies sufficient respect or consideration, in matter of gubernatorial appointments, for instance. If the Akali Dal and the BJP part company, it will only strengthen the Congress further in Punjab.
The Sena and the SAD are the BJP’s oldest partners and have remained allies through thick and thin, while others like the Telugu Desam party have come and gone. For their own individual and collective good, the two parties and the BJP have to work together.
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