The Monsoon session of the Maharashtra legislature witnessed several filibustering tactics, political dramas, one-upmanship, more heat and dust with little legislative business. While he was successful in keeping the major opposition parties under check, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis had to a face lot of veiled attacks from political allies and detractors from within the party Not that he had any refined strategies for handling the Opposition’s attack, but the lack of proper coordination among the opposition parties provided him enough leeway to hurriedly conduct legislative business.
During the last decade, the proceedings in legislatures have become political dramas to settle scores rather than providing a platform for reasoned and detailed discussions on legislations, creating an impact on everyday lives of ordinary citizens. In most cases, valuable time is consumed by trivial issues, political innuendos, slogan shouting, walkouts and boycotts. Hurriedly passed legislations, mostly drafted by administration, create situations where the government is forced to bring in amendments on the basis of complaints from the citizens and the elected representatives. Some of the bills were passed in the absence of the opposition. At the end of the session, the treasury benches managed to pass 18 out of 23 bills in both Houses.
The Congress and the NCP had decided to corner few ministers like Pankaja Munde and others with the allegation of corruption but failed. The opposition also failed to make concerted attack as they were divided and wanted to take credit for attacking the BJP-led government. The CM succeeded to some extent where he put some of the opposition stalwarts like Chhagan Bhujbal under pressure due to on-going inquiries into their alleged involvement in corruption cases. While the NCP was put under pressure, the Congress, which had good chance to attack the treasury benches, lost the opportunity. There was personal rivalry between competing leaders to grab attention of media. The opposition wanted nothing less than resignations by Pankaja Munde, Vinod Tawde and others but the government walked away with simple inquiry by the chief secretary into allegations. The government maintained that if the opposition wanted judicial inquiry, then they should have kept prima facie evidence ready while making allegations so that the government would have acted on their complaints.
The weakness exhibited by the opposition helped the treasury benches with passage of 18 legislative bills without much opposition. This included the Right to Service Act. Fadnavis ignored the opposition’s demand for total waver for farmers’ loan and went ahead with its own policy of extending Rs 25,000 crore over the next five years to farmers across Maharashtra through loan interest waiver with budget for one lakh wells.
Former CM Prithviraj Chavan, the non-corrupt poster boy of the Congress, is upset that their entire plan to corner the BJP-led government for corruption cases could not succeed. The CM used to hit back with a threat to investigate and expose corruption during 15-year Congress-NCP rule in the state.
Leader of the opposition in the state legislative assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil threatened to expose Fadnavis government through three videos against the ministers but failed. He excused himself by saying that the CM was not responding to the allegations made against his ministers.
One can feel frustration in the opposition camp from the outburst against opposition lethargy by senior Congress leader Narayan Rane. He was one of the best leaders of opposition in the legislature before he joined the Congress by leaving the Shiv Sena. He described the performance of the opposition as dismal since the opposition stalwarts merely kept on listening to the CM’s sermons as if they were listening to some religious discourse.
The NCP remained subdued right from the beginning except few efforts by Jitendra Awhad to put some life into the NCP attack. The NCP initially cooperated with the Congress but became totally inert once the Congress joined hands with the BJP to seize power in Gondia Zilla Parishad. With a move in distant place, the CM succeeded in distancing two enemies from each other.
The BJP could manage the two major opposition parties by playing differences between the two Congress parties, but it had much more difficulty in managing the disgruntled political ally – the Shiv Sena. Throughout the session, the Shiv Sena mouth piece, Saamna, continued to attack the Fadnavis government without any refrain. Uddhav Thackeray did not mince words while attacking the Union government, at times embarrassing the Narendra Modi government. The party took a different stand on the major issue of Land acquisition bill, making BJP floor managers worry about Sena’s stand on such a sensitive issue. At the fag end, the party decided that it would not be aligning with the Congress-led opposition though it has a different perspective on the way land acquisition bill should be handled. Since both BJP and Shiv Sena believe in the saffron ideology, they are competing with each other while sharing power in a coalition government. Similar situation existed for the Congress-NCP alliance which ruled the state for 15 years when NCP president Sharad Pawar used to take potshots at the Congress policies.
The Shiv Sena, which has more MLAs in Kolhapur district, has made it clear that it would be fighting the elections from the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation on its own. This is considered as a testing ground for the Sena since it is toying with the idea of fighting the upcoming BMC elections separately. It is easier said than done as the Sena would not like to lose its power in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) which is considered as a state within the state.
Though the Sena may not breakaway so soon from the BJP in Maharashtra, the possibility of it is keeping CM Devendra Fadnavis and the BJP on their toes all the time.
