Is The Maharashtra Government In Danger? Here Are The Numbers

It’s not often that political news erupts at odd hours, since politicians and television channels both prefer for such events to take place in the hours just preceding prime time. That way, both can milk the moment for maximum visibility, and the last TRP.

But big news did break late into the night of 20 June, in Maharashtra, when astounding reports emerged that members of the ruling coalition had cross-voted in the state’s legislative council elections.

Ten council seats were up for grabs, and as per the Maharashtra legislative assembly numbers, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was expected to win four, while the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) shared the balance six equally between their three principal constituents – Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (SS), Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and Sonia Gandhi’s Congress party.

But to everyone’s surprise, the BJP won a fifth seat defeating a Congress candidate. The final tally was: BJP-5, NCP-2, SS-2 and Congress-1.

The only way that could have happened is if members of the MVA voted for the BJP. And while details are still emerging, it is fairly clear that at least 12 SS and three Congress MLAs voted for the BJP (as per early reports, that number went up to 27 the next morning).

But by dawn of 21 June, the bigger news was that state Urban Development Minister Eknath Shinde, of the Shiv Sena, was holed up in a resort in Surat, Gujarat, along with 11 MVA MLAs. By breakfast time, the number being reported went up to 17, and by midday, that number swelled to 21, including three ministers of the state cabinet.

As this piece goes to the press, the reported number is 26, while Eknath Shinde claims that he has 29 MLAs with him.

Out of the blue, a full-blown rebellion was unexpectedly on in MVA ranks, and Uddhav Thackeray’s coalition government was at risk of falling. As the BJP’s irrepressible Kirit Somaiyya gleefully tweeted, “Thackeray's Mafia Sarkar's Count Down started”!

To effect damage control, Thackeray called a meeting ordering all Sena MLAs to be present, while the Congress sought to assemble their flock. But latest reports say that only 20 Sena MLAs turned up to for the meeting with Thackeray.

Only the NCP appeared unruffled, but Sharad Pawar is reported to have cut short his meetings in Delhi, on the impending presidential elections, and is flying back to Mumbai shortly. Meanwhile, news flashed that the BJP’s former Maharashtra Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, had rushed to Delhi to brief party seniors on this political development.

So, is the Thackeray government at risk? Can it fall?

In one sense, the MVA was at risk from the day it was formed in 2019, because it was a coalition of insoluble contradictions.

The Shiv Sena had contested those assembly elections firmly in alliance with the BJP, under Fadnavis’s leadership, and together, they had secured a renewed mandate. It was a fractious campaign, with the Sena doing all it could to ensure that the BJP contested as few seats as possible – because the Thackerays were worried that the BJP could very well have won over half the seats on their own.

It was a valid fear, as the results proved. The BJP won 105 of the 164 seats they contested (and could have won at least 10 more) – a strike rate of 64 per cent, while the Sena won just 56 of the 126 they contested – a strike rate of only 44 per cent.

That is when the Sena’s ambitions spilled over, and they broke with the BJP after the elections, to join hands with the NCP and Congress. This made a mockery of the popular mandate. It was also a betrayal for the ages, made even more egregious by the bald truth, that the Sena had effectively been reduced to an adjunct of the BJP by 2019; it had no solo viability.

The Congress too, has its own fears – of being gobbled up by the NCP. As recently as May 2022, the Congress’s Nana Patole openly accused the NCP of trying to finish off his party. He said he’d complained to his senior leadership of NCP ‘treachery’, and that the NCP was helping the BJP grow by weakening the Congress.

This is not meant to happen in a moral democracy, but if it does, then everything boils down to numbers. And these are the numbers of the Maharashtra legislative assembly:

Simply put, the BJP had 105 seats on its side before the present crisis erupted – 40 short of the halfway mark. Adding the 12 Sena MLAs who cross-voted takes the BJP up to 117. Discounting two MLAs of the AIMIM who would not ally with the BJP under any circumstances, the balance 11 ’Others’ seats takes the figure up to 128 – 17 short.

But the morning news was that the BJP commanded 134 seats. If that is true, then the number of Sena rebels is greater than the 12 who cross-voted. One constraint is the anti-defection law, by which, at least 38 Shiv Sena MLAs have to quit en masse, if they are not to be disqualified. But, as the BJP in Madhya Pradesh showed in 2020, when Jyotiraditya Scindia defected to them from the Congress, there are workarounds.

Readers must also not forget that of the 16 minor constituents of the MVA, eight are independents, none of whom are bound by the anti-defection law. According to latest reports, five of these eight have joined the Eknath Shinde camp. If this keeps up, the total number of MVA rebels could touch 40 soon, meaning that, with them, the BJP then technically reaches the halfway mark.

We will have to wait a little longer to see how this revolt within the MVA plays out, but there is no gainsaying the fact that the MVA had no moral basis in the first place. The 2019 mandate was clearly for a BJP-Sena government in Maharashtra, with Devendra Fadnavis at its head – not an assemblage of contradictions led by Uddhav Thackeray, which nullified the popular will.

Now, while the threat of disqualification under the anti-defection law presently deters more Sena and Congress MLAs from joining Eknath Shinde at Surat, it does appear that Uddhav Thackeray’s days as Chief Minister are finally numbered.