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The outcome of the zilla parishad (ZP) and panchayat samiti (PS)
elections in rural Maharashtra is definitely a shot in the arm for
the Shiv Sena (SS) as well as for its junior ally, the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP), with which it runs the state. True, the
alliance has won only four of the 29 ZPs and about a third of the
PS seats, as against the Congress which won 14 ZPs and under half
the PS seats.
SS-BJP Alliance
But the alliance was not expected to do half as well as it has.
The Congress was rurally entrenched from the beginning and the
alliance, especially the SS, was comparatively a Johnny-come-
lately. Local polls to 205 municipal councils held in January did
not bring the SS-BJP alliance much comfort. They showed the
Congress winning many of them while the others went to local fronts
or to independents. The alliance took only 37.
The Congress has again retained its dominance of the countryside
for now, but the next time round, the alliance may even challenge
its long-held primacy. As it is, the fate of 11 ZPs is in the hands
of independents who are being assiduously courted by both the
Congress and the SS-BJP. This is in itself a change from the
previous pattern of these polls. In the last elections, the
Congress won all 29 ZPs and ruled the roost in the PSs as well.
Independents are a recent phenomenon which owes its existence
largely to the Congress inability to deal with factionalism. So
long as there was no other force to reckon with in the villages,
independents posed a minor problem and could be persuaded to
support the Congress or be left severely alone. This is not so
today. The independents have an alternative in the alliance which
is making a bid to win them over before the imminent ZP
presidential elections.
Even the three amendments to the rules affecting the working of
rural bodies which the Maharashtra government had made before the
polls seemed as much to go in the alliance's favour as, which was
the general expectation, to go against it.
A two-thirds majority was no longer necessary to introduce a
noconfidence motion against the president and other office-bearers
of a local body. A simple majority would suffice. Members of
these bodies who had defected could now be eligible to hold
positions. The term of president, vice-president and chairman of
these bodies was reduced overnight through an ordinance from five
years to one. This last especially created consternation among
rural politicians. In an attempt to assuage it, the state
government announced a series of measures to make reserve funds
available to ZPs and PSs on the same scale as those provided for
parliamentary and assembly members.
Two of the three changes could be justified as attempts to hold
local politicians more accountable than previously and to make
local democracy more participatory. After all, why should office-
bearers not have to face local electorates after only one year,
instead of the earlier five? And why should they not face a
noconfidence motion introduced by a simple, instead of by a two-
thirds, majority?
Both changes will have the effect of keeping them on their toes and
of helping to prevent them from acquiring vested interests.
Parliament and assembly members have to face noconfidence motions
after only a majority vote; why should rural bodies' members be any
different?
As for the duration of the terms of important office-bearers of
rural bodies, they may have been given five years on the lines of
similar bodies in the assembly and Parliament. But such a rule for
local bodies is not necessarily in the people's interest. A state
government that wishes to change the terms, irrespective of motive,
may well argue that it is in the public interest to have these
terms reduced to one year.
Dubious Change
Only the third change, that concerning the holding of office by
members of rural bodies who are defectors from other parties than
those on whose ticket they have been elected, is dubious at best.
It will only serve to encourage defections, to which the SS-BJP
alliance may not he averse.
As it happens, the tenor of the results of the ZP and PS polls
suggests that these changes were not perceived by voters to be as
opportunistic and motivated as the mainly Congress detractors made
them out to be. The SS-BJP still did surprisingly well, well
enough to cause the Congress some real worry if it doesn't start
looking up by the time the next elections are held.
The SS, more than even the BJP, is now the party best poised to
storm rural Maharashtra as it has already captured urban
Maharashtra. The assembly polls, then the Lok Sabha elections,
then, recently, those to the urban municipal corporations, all have
confirmed the alliance, especially the SS, as the dominant party in
urban Maharashtra. In rural Maharashtra, the alliance has at last
carved out for itself an important place at the cost of the
Congress.
Stress & Strain
However, the alliance itself is not without stresses and strains.
'Me SS is only too aware of its strength in its home state. But as
its leader, Mr Bal Thackeray, makes plain from time to time, the SS
is now aspiring to national status, although it has yet to win the
support of those in the state who don't belong to its
"Maharashtrian" constituency. Many of the latter, for example the
influential and rich Gujaratis, prefer, by and large, the BJP
instead.
Mr Thackeray's aim probably is to use the BJP for now. Yet, by
criticising it from time to time, reminding it of its "junior"
role, and refusing to ally completely with it except where it is
convenient for the SS, as he has done in every election, he hopes
eventually to hold almost complete sway over all of Maharashtra and
reduce the BJP's influence and following. He may perhaps look to
playing a role in national, coalition politics which is mainly
played by various regional parties.
For that to happen, however, he will need to shed his extremist
image and policies if he is to escape the BJP's present fate, which
is that no-party, except for parochial formations like the Akalis
in Punjab, wants to have anything to do with it at the national or
even, as in Uttar
Pradesh, at the state level. This is Mr Thackeray's Catch-22. If he
becomes a non-chauvinist, non- extremist, non-"Hindutva" leader, he
might well sing the SS's swansong.
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