Alliance trouble in Maharashtra? Crisis in MVA ahead of local body polls

MUMBAI: The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), a bold political experiment launched five years ago in Maharashtra, is grappling with an existential crisis. Formed as a coalition of non-BJP parties – primarily the Congress, Shiv Sena (then undivided) and Nationalist Congress Party (then undivided) – it was meant to be a bulwark against the rising dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But its crushing defeat in the November 2024 assembly elections exposed a bitter reality – cracks have turned into fault lines, differences into hostile accusations, and one constituent has even hinted it might walk out on its allies.

Can the MVA regroup and turn things around, or have its constituents – the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) – reached a point of no return?

The crisis surfaced when Sena (UBT) mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ on Thursday said the party was considering contesting the upcoming Mumbai civic polls on its own, and not as a constituent of the MVA. On Friday, senior Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar reopened an old wound, saying the allies had had wasted 20 days on seat-sharing discussions, which cost them dear in the assembly elections. Amol Kolhe, NCP (SP) MP, said it was apparent that the party’s allies, the Sena (UBT) and Congress, were not prepared to get their act together and the only hope for the people was NCP (SP) chief their Sharad Pawar.

The MVA was a first-of-its-kind experiment in which opposition parties as well as the Shiv Sena, an ally of the BJP, came together to keep the BJP of power. The saffron party, post-2014, had emerged as a dominant political party at the national level and in the state, and the MVA aimed to halt its seemingly unstoppable march.

In the 2019 assembly elections, when the BJP-Sena alliance won a majority, the Sena walked out of the coalition as the BJP refused to rotate the chief minister’s position. Sharad Pawar, a veteran of coalitions, took the initiative and the Sena teamed up with secular parties to form an MVA government in Maharashtra. The experiment became a template for opposition parties at the national level, to form the INDIA coalition. Here too, all parties regardless of their ideologies, united on one platform.

Ironically, while the INDIA alliance appears to be crumbling in the Delhi assembly elections, the MVA too appears to be in serious trouble. Deep fissures within the coalition have surfaced when all parties are preparing for elections to district councils and municipal corporations in almost all major cities, including Mumbai. These elections will be a litmus test for the MVA, their outcome indicating whether the people continue to support the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance or are willing to give the opposition a second chance, despite its embarrassing defeat in the assembly elections. While the three ruling parties in the Mahayuti coalition are silent on how they plan to contest the local body polls, opposition leaders are gunning for each other, rather than rallying to defeat an old political foe.

“We wasted 20 days discussing seat-sharing before the assembly elections. Where was the need for so much discussion? We have to accept that the time we wasted caused much damage to the MVA,” Wadettiwar told the media in Chandrapur.

He also blamed state Congress president Nana Patole and Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut for their refusal to compromise on thorny issues, leading to a delay that cost the MVA dear. “Patole and Raut were the major leaders. If differences had been resolved in two days, we would have had 18 more days for planning and preparations. The three parties could not even campaign together in the polls,” said Wadettiwar, who was leader of the opposition in the previous Mahayuti government. Wadettiwar, who was a part of the seat-sharing discussions, claimed that some leaders would arrive very late for the meetings, a practice that didn’t help these already fraught meetings.

NCP (SP) MP Amol Kolhe criticised his allies for their inaction after the MVA’s rout in the assembly polls. “The Sena (UBT) is not prepared to wake up from its slumber and the Congress cannot get its act together,” Kolhe said, addressing a two-day party conclave in Mumbai, as quoted by leaders who attended the event. “We are fortunate to have Sharad Pawar. It is a fight for survival and it is high time we came forward and worked hard,” Kolhe said, hinting there is still hope that the MVA could regroup and reestablish itself as an effective opposition alliance.

Senior Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut admitted that there were mistakes in the seat sharing process but blamed the Congress. “After the Lok Sabha elections, some people believed the political situation in the country had changed and insisted on (more) seats. When there were differences over seat sharing, which delayed the process, the Congress central committee did not intervene and the MVA lost the elections. Losing a state like Maharashtra was a big jolt. There were mistakes and we must all accept them,” said Raut.

“If there is no coordination, we will all have to pay a price. The Congress is a national party and the largest party in the alliance, and it should take the initiative for coordination in the alliance,” added Raut.

(Inputs by Saurabha Kulshreshtha)