NDA has gained absolute majority in Bihar polls much to chagrin of many liberals, jihadis, and paid journalists. The clean sweep of NDA in the by-elections across India combined with Bihar results gives Modi much needed boost after setbacks like CAA, Corona, and Trump’s impeding ouster from the white house. Forlorn long faces of liberal anchors and journalists on some ‘anyone-but-Modi’ channels were pictures to behold. All day long the numbers kept moving up and down like a yo-yo. You could see this brigade getting a little excited in moments when race appeared to be tightening but in the end they went home deeply disappointed. Some of them were calling out Congress as the ‘weakest link’ in the Bihar MGB experiment. Disillusionment must have crossed a threshold for them to single out their masters. Some were blaming their own exit pollsters for giving them false hope. But seriously, how many exit polls the left leaning pollsters have to get wrong before they are fired? Be it India or US, no one in psephology business has come out smelling of roses in this election season.

Anyways, now that Bihar is out of the way, the raging fire in Mumbai is the next one to douse for Modi. With the dastardly act of arresting Arnab, the MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) govt has thrown down the gauntlet at the centre. It’s not the Thackeray family that would worry BJP, it’s the wily shark ‘Pawar’ in Maharashtra that they have to outmanoeuvre. All of this is Pawar’s carefully calibrated plan. Audacious actions of the MVA government reek of attempts at provocation. They are provoking centre to intervene. Any knee-jerk reaction from the centre will give them excuse to play victim card and use it to their advantage among Marathi public, hurting BJP electoral chances in the state. On the other hand, with Bihar and by-election’s unambiguous, emphatic wins, BJP has moral upper hand to go into Maharashtra and hold MVA to account for the mess they have created.

BJP has big plans for Maharashtra. They plan to win the state on their own. This is their ideological dream as Maharashtra is also the RSS karmbhoomi with headquarter in Nagpur. It commands a pious place in the hearts of all karyakartas and ruling the state as a single party will fill them with a lot of pride. It will be coming of age of an ideology that has achieved much across the country. BJP is probably not ready for an election in the state at the moment. Hypothetically, if president’s rule is imposed in Maharashtra and it take six months to call elections, there will be anti-incumbancy against BJP. With these calculations in mind, Modi will no doubt tread carefully. If he doesn’t act, however, he will appear to be weak and not in control.

Sonia Sena is electoral toast now. When they decided to ally with Pawar and Sonia, they shot themselves in the foot. In the next election, it will be a surprise if they even get half of the seats they have in the current assembly. The real opponent for BJP is ‘Pawar’. No doubt BJP’s chanakya in Delhi is thinking of an strategy that will give BJP an upper hand. It’s obvious that they were waiting for Bihar to be out of the way before they take on MVA. You might see some action now. It will be far fetched to think that they will invoke 356 willy-nilly and dissolve MVA government but something substantial that will hurt MVA is on the cards. Some BJP leaders have given subtle hints to this effect.

Tomorrow, as the vacation bench of justices Chandrachud and Banerjee gets ready to hear Arnab’s bail plea, MVA govt must be watching with baited breadth. SC can rip them apart, as they did in SSR case handover to CBI and lately in the case of Maharashtra assembly’s notice to Arnab. If SC takes a grim view of the law and order situation in the state, that can give centre a pretext to take some stern action. SC will be well advised to not ignore the deliberate pathetic delays at Mumbai HC in dispensing justice in this case as it has sent very bad signal about judiciary. Question is how far Modi will go in fixing MVA government without hurting BJP’s prospects in the state?? We will just have to wait and see…

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