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Cropin Socio-Tech Venture Case Case Study IIMK/CS/119/ECO/2020/01 November 2020 The Maharashtra Political Crisis: The Coalition that Mattered Anirban Ghatak1 1Assistant Professor, Economics, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, IIMK Campus, Kunnamangalam, Kozhikode, Kerala 673 570, India; Email: [email protected], Phone number: +91 495 2809655 Before that moment on October 24, 2019, the fate of the Maharashtra State Legislative Assembly election in India was somewhat predetermined. There was neither much speculative energy nor antagonistic heat in the air, except for the occasional, almost ritual, squabbles between activists of the various political parties that contested in the election, in sporadic local pockets. Uddhav Thackarey, the erstwhile prince who recently became the king of his late father’s party, Shiv Sena, was also content with the exit poll predictions and the ground reports that came from his own trustworthy generals. On the other hand, the rest of the world was keeping a cautious eye on the predictions. After all, the result was going to affect the financial capital of the largest democracy in the world. There were numerous parties that were fighting in that election, but pre-poll alliances along with the stark inequality in the size of the parties had boiled down the serious contenders into only few notable clusters. There was National Democratic Alliance (NDA) which, for this context, comprised of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that was the ruling party in the center, and Shiv Sena, the flag-bearer of the ‘local’ in Maharashtra. On the other side, there was United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which had Indian National Congress (INC) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) as its most notable participants in this election. The rest of them were negligibly small in size, and can be conveniently bundled into the third cluster, ‘Other’. To win the election, it was necessary for any party or alliance to win 145 seats, that is the majority of the assembly of 288 seats. Exit polls (Agarwal, 2019) and Opinion polls (FE, 2019; Joy, 2019; News18, 2019; Rao, 2019; Sharma, 2019) from various sources had unanimously predicted that the NDA would win by a wide margin, if not a landslide [Exhibit 1]. October 24, 2019. The results from various booths of various constituencies started pouring in from 8AM. Slowly it was getting clearer that the exit polls had it slightly overestimated. The analysts in each camp were getting busier as the day progressed. By afternoon, the public came to know that there wasn’t any landslide, but there was a sure and comfortable margin for NDA with 161 seats [Exhibit 2] (CEO-MH, n.d.) in the Legislative Assembly. Interestingly, Uddhav Thackarey wasn’t quite ready to agree with the public, yet. Thackarey was quick to realize that BJP alone was not enough powerful, with only 105 seats, to form the government. There was his moment to grab the opportunity, and he was not na¨ıve to waste that. Immediately after the final declaration of results, Thackarey claimed the post of Chief Minister within the intra-alliance meeting, somehow anticipating that this was a move that is unlikely to bring any harm to his party. This was an unexpected move to the party who has won two third of the seats within the alliance, and there was no reason for BJP to agree to this. And they didn’t. To BJP, Shiv Sena had nowhere to go other than NDA, and they played their best card by denying Thackarey’s proposal outright. What happened next, was definitely not anticipated, and to many seasoned political analysts it was a suicidal move for Shiv Sena. Thackarey officially declared that his party is leaving the pre-poll NDA alliance, leaving the electoral scene more complicated than anyone could have imagined. The only way out from the electoral situation that was created was to arrive at some new post- poll alliance. But that wasn’t any less tricky either! NDA, a traditional right wing alliance has fought against UPA, a traditional centrist alliance in every state in India for decades. There was no history of any National party of UPA (here, INC and NCP) to come to a post-poll alliance with any National party of NDA (here, only BJP), or vice versa. Both BJP and Shiv Sena were aware of this history, as were the major parties of UPA. It was evident that any such alliance would unravel the ideological bankruptcy that would have triggered the alliance, and a host of debates on politics, policy, and constitution would begin if that ever happened. This never did any good to anyone who is powerful enough to care about their image. And everyone knew that. On the other hand, it was not a very uncommon event where some small partner (State Party, like Shiv Sena) of either UPA or NDA joined hand with the rival alliance for state or local body elections. Perhaps, then the gain from the power had significantly outweighed the loss in reputation for both the groups that joined hand! However, for National parties, history has proved, reputation was fairly important unless they were at the brink of oblivion. And in our case, none of the parties were at the brink of oblivion. What unfolded after, was a series of dramatic moves, shameless horse-trading, formation of a government that lasted for three days, and above all, a slew of masterstrokes by the ace politician Thackarey. Shiv Sena, lead by the iron fist of Thackarey, didn’t move an inch from their position and never proposed to re-join NDA. It was a stalemate, a game of chicken. Everyone was holding on to their cards, waiting until the opposition crumbles under pressure. Only, BJP was thinking otherwise, busy to change the rule of the game. BJP took some of the members of NCP in confidence, and reached the magic number 145, using an ad-hoc post poll alliance, to form the government. The government sworn in on November 23, 2019. Sharad Pawar, the NCP chief wasn’t happy with this, and he was also quick to denounce his party’s connection with the defectors who moved with NDA. The anti-defection law came handy at this moment, and the defector members of NCP came back, leaving BJP high and dry. The government collapsed in three days, setting a historic precedence. In the meantime, Shiv Sena convinced INC and NCP that this was their only chance to form the government, which they could not have thought otherwise without taking some serious hit to their image, if they agreed to let Shiv Sena lead the new post-poll alliance. NCP and INC had no choice but to grab this only opportunity to represent. And finally, Thackarey became the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on November 28, 2019. In another three days, he announced that the nephew of the National President of NCP will be the Deputy Chief Minister of the state. The interesting question that since then has baffled the psephologists and political analysts is, how could Thackarey remain so confident to challenge a political behemoth like BJP? What was in their support? Was there any math that only Thackarey did, and everyone else overlooked? Exhibit 1: Opinion & Exit Poll Poll type Publishing Date Polling Agency NDA UPA Opinion polls 26-Sep-19 ABP News– C Voter 205 55 27-Sep-19 NewsX– Pollstrat 210 49 17-Oct-19 Republic Media – Jan Ki Baat 225-232 48-52 18-Oct-19 ABP News– C Voter 194 86 18-Oct-19 IANS – C Voter 182-206 72-98 Exit polls India Today – Axis 166-194 72-90 News18 – IPSOS 243 41 Republic Media – Jan Ki Baat 216-230 52-59 ABP News– C Voter 204 69 NewsX– Pollstrat 188-200 74-89 Times Now 230 48 Created by Author using data from the sources listed in the references Exhibit 2: Election Result PARTY TYPE PARTY (ALLIANCE) CONTESTED WON NATIONAL PARTIES 1 BJP (NDA) 164 105 2 BSP 262 0 3 CPI 16 0 4 CPIM 8 1 5 INC (UPA) 147 44 6 NCP (UPA) 121 54 STATE PARTIES - OTHER STATES 7 AAAP 24 0 8 AIFB 1 0 9 AIMIM 44 2 10 IUML 14 0 11 JD(S) 6 0 12 SP 7 2 STATE PARTIES 13 MNS 101 1 14 Shiv Sena (NDA) 126 56 Created by Author using data from the Election Commission website References Agarwal, N. (2019). Exit poll results: Pollsters predict big win for bjp in maharashtra, haryana. Re- trieved September 16, 2020, from https://www.livemint.com/elections/assembly-elections/ maharashtra-assembly-election-exit-polls-2019-results-live-updates-11571654934714.html CEO-MH. (n.d.). Assembly election 2019. Retrieved September 16, 2020, from https : / / ceo . maharashtra.gov.in/AC2019.aspx FE. (2019). Maharashtra opinion poll 2019: Bjp, shiv sena likely to retain power with two-thirds majority. Retrieved September 16, 2020, from https://www.financialexpress.com/india- news/maharashtra- assembly- election- 2019- opinion- poll- abp- c- voter- devendra- fadnavis- bjp-shiv-sena-congress-ncp/1714003/ Joy, S. (2019). Opinion poll predicts bjp win in haryana, maharashtra. Retrieved September 16, 2020, from https://www.deccanherald.com/assembly-election-2019/opinion-poll-predicts- bjp-win-in-haryana-maharashtra-769463.html News18. (2019). Survey predicts landslide bjp victory in haryana, big win in maharashtra. Retrieved September 16, 2020, from https : // www . news18 . com / news / politics / survey - predicts - landslide-bjp-victory-in-haryana-big-win-in-maharashtra-2351241.html Rao, A. (2019). Maharashtra opinion poll: Bjp projected for single-majority on its own. Retrieved September 16, 2020, from https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/elections/maharashtra- opinion-poll-bjp-projected-for-single-majority-on-its-own.html Sharma, G.
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