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Election season will soon be upon Mumbai, as the local corporation elections in Mumbai are due early 2017. The fight for the richest municipal body in the country with a budget that beats those of many States is naturally hard-fought. In Maharashtra’s fractured and multi-polar polity, elections provide parties an opportunity to test strength apart from affording a chance to re-examine their relationship with each other. This time, electoral alliances may well see some re-alignment. Two so-called allies, the BJP and Shiv Sena, will have to take a call on whether they fight together or against each other (officially).
The signs so far have been ominous. One partner refers to the alliance of 25 years as a waste — a sentiment that is reciprocated warmly. Trading insults and barbs between them is routine, and any pretensions to subtlety and wit in criticising each other are shunned, of course. Instead, allusions to Bollywood villains and comedians, carnivores and reptiles are par for the course when the two ‘allies’ talk about each other’s leaders. Tempers cooled a bit and there was a brief show of bonhomie around the time of the last cabinet reshuffle. Once the fishes and loaves of office were distributed (or denied), the mutual sniping resumed.
What is the layperson to make of the endless bickering? It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence that the alliance will last or that good governance is anywhere on the agenda. After the experience they have been put through during the last few years it is unlikely that the Mumbai electorate will bat an eyelid even if the BJP and Congress (or Sena and NCP, for that matter) come together to fight elections. They have had enough of ‘allies’ fighting together. It is now time for the enemies to join hands! Perhaps that will restore the focus of these parties on delivering what the corporation is supposed to do — keep roads smooth and functioning, efficiently dispose of solid waste and garbage, provide a pollution-free environment and clean water, and an honest administration.
NS Vageesh Associate Editor
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