Sunil Gatade | Will ‘Bandhua Majdoor’ remain loyal to the BJP?

The latest talk is that the one who could soon be joining the “dumping” list could be Ajit Pawar of the NCP in Maharashtra. A friend or ally is only as good as his/her performance in the last election.
After his stark failure to demolish Sharad Pawar’s Baramati bastion in the recently-held Lok Sabha polls, Ajit Pawar has virtually no utility value left for the saffron party.

Ajit’s party could win only one of the four seats it had contested in the Lok Sabha polls from the state, bringing its strike rate to a mere 25 per cent.
For the BJP to stabilise in Maharashtra, it is essential that it first demolish the Maratha strongman. There are no shortcuts. Despite his best efforts, Ajit's wife Sunetra failed to defeat incumbent Supriya Sule and lost by over one lakh votes. For the BJP, it was an unbearable shock and a grim setback to its “Demolition Sharad Pawar” strategy. Ajit deserves no pardon.

The talk in Maharashtra is that the BJP could be humiliating Ajit in the allocation of seats for the Assembly polls by agreeing to concede a far lesser number of seats than being demanded by him. Recently, there were reports that Ajit’s party wanted to contest some 80 to 85 of the total 288 seats, an almost impossible task being part of the “Mahayuti”.

An NCP leader had recently suggested that if it was pushed to the wall, the party was not without options. It could tie up with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi.

The moral of the story is that Ajit is a beleaguered man and could face trouble, sooner rather than later.

But even if Ajit is shown the door or if he opts out of the Mahayuti, the three-party ruling alliance in the state, his party would continue
to support the BJP at the Centre.

His detractors have often alleged that the controversial Ajit Pawar had been forced by the BJP to split his uncle’s party and join the Mahayuti if he wanted to avoid a probe into his alleged financial misdeeds, which are said to be massive.

The same may be the plight of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy of the YSRCP, whose party had recently said that the BJP could ill afford to ignore its 15 MPs.

The BJP is not unduly worried even though it has been in alliance with N. Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh, which is now in power the state.

Mr Naidu is the arch detractor of Jagan Mohan Reddy and is one of the key supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was able to become the PM for the third time only due to the crucial support of the TDP and the JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar.

Mr Modi knows that the YSRCP will have no other option but to continue support at the Centre because Jagan Mohan Reddy faces several probes by the investigating agencies, including the ED. A nod from Mr Modi could land Mr Reddy in the soup, goes the argument in political circles.

Mr Reddy faces a double whammy. Mr Naidu has not forgotten how only a few months back he was thrown into jail by him. Mr Reddy needs double blessings from the PM to save himself. The MPs of Mr Reddy’s party -- four in the Lok Sabha and 11 in the Upper House -- will virtually be guided by the BJP’s whip.

The BRS led by former Telangana CM K. Chandrasekhar Rao, which once wanted to play a prominent role at the national level, got the dubious distinction of scoring a duck in the Lok Sabha polls.

His party has four Rajya Sabha members, and they would be more prone to support the BJP. Congress CM Revanth Reddy is a known detractor of Mr Rao. The former CM will have to keep the Centre in good humour as his daughter K. Kavitha is yet to get bail in the excise case. During the Assembly poll campaign, Rahul Gandhi’s pitch that Mr Rao, then CM, takes orders from Mr Modi, had hit the BRS hard. It is now planning to revert to its old name Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).

BJD chief Naveen Patnaik is bitter about the BJP after losing power in the Assembly polls, held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls. He has asked his 10-odd members in the Rajya Sabha to vigorously oppose the government.

It is a departure from past practice. In the nearly 25 years he has been in power, the BJD used to invariably support the Central government, whichever party may be in power. “Don’t disturb me in Odisha” was his unwritten message for the quid pro quo.

Talk about the BJP initiating attempts to weaken the BJD has begun in earnest. The era of toppling non-BJP governments, engineering splits and weaning away of Opposition MPs and MLAs has been seen in the past decade. The BJD’s decision to not play the “Bandhua Majdoor”, or bonded labour, of the BJP at the Centre will attract stiff punishment.

In Punjab, the Shiromani Akali Dal, one of the BJP’s oldest allies, is also not playing ball. Party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal’s wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal recently targeted the BJP over the rebellion within the Akali Dal. The newly-elected MP from Bathinda said the BJP was now trying to destabilise and break the Akali Dal using its “stooges”.Will ‘Bandhua Majdoor’ remain loyal to the BJP?