The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Thursday 23 October 2014

MAHARASHTRA ASSEMBLY ELECTION 2014: WHY SHIV SENA IS THE BIGGEST LOSER

Out of NCP, Congress and Shiv Sena, the biggest setback goes to Shiv Sena. It is the biggest loser in spite of registering growth, in seats and in vote share.

Many in the party would be rightly thinking, that just for 5 seats, they lost the 'senior ally' in Maharashtra tag, and that too, by a huge margin. Yes, they are the second largest party in Maharashtra assembly but their 63 seats are nowhere near to BJP's 122 seats, given the fact that BJP had been the junior partner of Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and was ready to do so even this time, agreeing to contest on lesser number of seats than Shiv Sena in the failed seat-sharing talks.

And BJP had reasons and rights to ask for so, because it was not too outrageous a demand. It had performed exceedingly well in the Lok Sabha elections cornering maximum number of Lok Sabha seats from Maharashtra that sends 48 members to the parliament.

In 2014 LS polls, BJP had won 23 seats with 27% vote share while Shiv Sena had 18 seats with 21% vote share. It was a considerable improvement for both. BJP had taken up its tally from 9 LS seats and 19% vote share in 2009 to 23 seats in 2014. Shiv Sena also did very well taking up its tally from 10 seats to 18 seats with 17% vote share in 2009.

But Shiv Sena's performance was not at par with its junior ally of the past, when seen in comparison with BJP's rising graph in the state, when it had to be surpassing what BJP achieved. Even in 2009 assembly polls, the junior partner of the alliance had won two seats more (46) than Shiv Sena's 44 seats. And when it simply outperformed everyone in the Lok Sabha polls registering 8% increase in vote share and over 150% increase in seats, it was right to expect for more.


BJP had a symbolic edge over Shiv Sena with 2009 assembly election results but the 2014 LS polls outcome placed it much ahead of all others, including Shiv Sena. Shiv Sena had to realize it and should have appreciated when BJP didn't ask for sky-high price for its electoral edge.

But, their ego had to blind them all. Alleging BJP of the 'big brother' attitude, they tried to act 'bigger brother' and the talks collapsed.

This was when BJP had Narendra Modi and the Modi Factor advantage as well, that drove home a clear majority to a non-Congress party for the first time in electoral history. Probably, Shiv Sena strategists had become so convinced of the hypothesis that Modi Wave had receded based on the bye-election outcomes, that saw that all the 'green' was going to adore them only. But Maharashtra and Haryana (in Haryana, BJP got clear majority and is going to form the government there, from 4 seats in 2009 to clear majority in 2014) tell Modi Wave is still very much here.

It was for Modi Wave only, that BJP, despite not having as strong an organizational structure in whole Maharashtra as Shiv Sena had, could outperform so brilliantly its 'senior partner' from the recent past.

So brilliantly, that Shiv Sena is now slated to become BJP's junior partner in Maharashtra.

So brilliantly, that BJP is now dictating the terms, even if it is 23 seats short of the majority mark. The NCP offer of unconditional outside support has taken whatever sheen Shiv Sena was left with in a post-election scenario of hung assembly.

BJP won more than what Shiv Sena was offering, 119 seats. Had it been in the alliance, even if with 5 more seats, BJP would not have been able to win so many seats. What BJP was demanding was modest. What Shiv Sena's arrogance gave it was grand. And what Shiv Sena lost was grander, costing it the 'senior alliance partner' position, and the leverage in the national politics. 

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/