The Hindu Business Line : BJP-Sena chances brighten

IF the elections had been not to the Lok Sabha but the Maharashtra Assembly, the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party would have come back to power, for in the Assembly segments of the 48 Lok Sabha seats, they have led their rivals in 145. In a House of 288, that simple majority, without the support of any Independents, means a stable rule.

That has rattled the rivals — the Congress (I) and the Nationalist Congress Party, which could not make a "mincemeat" of the BJP-Sena, as their arithmetic by a pre-poll alliance for Lok Sabha polls said was possible.

Instead, they won leads in only 132 Assembly segments. Now, the Congress (I)-NCP have, between them, set off a blame game in public.

The Congress (I) chief for Maharashtra, Mr Ranjit Deshmuk, has said that the fault lay in excessive emphasis on the NCP in the two-party alliance for the Lok Sabha polls. Also, within the party, there was an error of judgement in that the choices of candidates were wrong. To this, the NCP counterblast has been that the Congress (I)'s cooperation was less than optimal.

This nuance of the Lok Sabha polls may or may not be replicated, but it is a benchmark upon which the key players would build their strategies, especially since the NCP-Congress (I) vote share had declined from the levels of 1999 and the BJP-Sena's has surged from 38 to 42.7 per cent. Put together, the NCP plus Congress (I) vote share was 55.9 per cent; it dropped to 43.3 per cent. If there is an edge, it is a wafer thin 0.6 per cent.

Since elections are to be held in September-end, or latest by the first week of October, the BJP-Sena calculates that the Government, despite a please-all budget, has no time to really convert the approved proposals into palpable ground realities. Therefore, the two parties expect to further stoke the anti-incumbency even as they are sure that the dynamics of an

Assembly polls would give them a further leg-up against the Congress (I)-NCP.

This is how the BJP's argument, apparently subscribed to by its partner Sena also, goes: since NCP and the Congress (I), despite being partners in the Government here for nearly five years, have been fighting for the same political space simultaneously and therefore, when tickets are allotted by them to candidates, each of the Assembly seat would have a claimant from the other party. This, the BJP-Sena is convinced, would mean a spate of rebellion.

According to the Opposition assessment, as many as 80 to 100 seats of the 288 fall in the category of those that would have "tremendous internal pressures" and the BJP-Sena can fish there beneficially. It either helps "us win or it helps elect an Independent. If it is Independents, then that pool becomes our fishing ground." This has made the BJP-Sena optimistic which is not averse to strategically pick and chose such rebels and help them. Like the present NCP-Sena Government, BJP too had independents supporting it in the past to keep a Government going.

The two, who insist that the alliance for the Lok Sabha polls would, however, continue for the Assembly elections as well, despite the poor synergy at the grassroots and even at the middle-level in the party, realise that apart from the stated reasons, the main contributory factor was anti-incumbency against the Congress (I)-NCP Government. To counter which, some fire fighting has been set in motion.

The recently approved budget, with the worst-ever deficit of Rs 7,303 crore, is the key provider of hope for the NCP-Congress (I). It has a slew of sops which include electricity to farmers at 25 paise per unit, a 6 per cent hike in DA to employees, a Rs 1,946-crore package to backward areas — three of them, Marathwada, Vidarbha and Konkan electorally thrashed the NCP-Congress (I) — are among the several, though there are signs that the

State's economy is bleeding.

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BJP-Sena chances brighten