India’s Opposition Parties Stay Together Despite Differences Over Modi

Indranil Mukherjee/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Shiv Sena party chief Uddhav Thackeray, right, watching as his father Bal Thackeray’s body is being taken for the funeral procession in Mumbai, Maharashtra, on Nov. 18, 2012.

Uddhav Thackeray, the Shiv Sena executive president, announced last Friday that his party would support the Bharatiya Janata Party in the national elections scheduled for next year. But his support was tempered by his next remark. “The country needs a strong government and a credible leader, but I can’t see anyone who fits that description,” Mr. Thackeray told reporters.

He gave no names, but political observers saw the comment as a jab at Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, who is expected to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s nominee for prime minister.

As marriages of convenience go, the one between the Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., and the Shiv Sena, the Mumbai-based militant right-wing party, is especially loveless, although on paper, the two appear to be well matched. Primarily, both are strongly committed to a form of Hindu nationalism or Hindutva, and excoriate the Congress party for being “pseudo-secular” because it gives “undue concessions” to the minority Muslim community.

Mr. Modi is one of two sources of friction between the allies. The other is Raj Thackeray, who broke away from the Shiv Sena in 2006 to form the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, a potential rival for the B.J.P’s affections.

The Shiv Sena and the B.J.P. have weathered many conflicts in their shared history. In 1989, before the general and Maharashtra state elections, the B.J.P. had some misgivings when it tied up for the first time with the Shiv Sena. Some B.J.P. leaders were worried that their party would be upstaged by the Sena’s founder, the late Bal Thackeray. From the mid-1980s, the fiery leader had broadened his party’s agenda from representing Marathi speakers who felt marginalized in cosmopolitan Mumbai to speaking for all Hindus who felt disillusioned with the country’s secular parties, a segment that the B.J.P. was always aiming to capture.

More than two decades later, the tables have turned. It is the Shiv Sena that is wary of the B.J.P., for the same reason. Despite being B.J.P.’s ideologically closest party in the alliance, or precisely because of this, the Sena is wary of Mr. Modi, fearing that it will be overshadowed in an alliance in which he has a large role.

Mr. Modi shares many of late Bal Thackeray’s personality traits. Like Mr. Thackeray, Mr. Modi has an authoritarian bent. Both have played a role in some of the worst anti-Muslim violence India has seen â€" Mr. Thackeray admitted his party started the riots that targeted Muslims in Mumbai in 1992, and during Mr. Modi’s first term as chief minister, Gujarat erupted in riots that killed nearly 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

The National Democratic Alliance, the main opposition coalition led by the B.J.P., is looking to unseat the ruling United Progressive Alliance, led by the Indian National Congress Party, in New Delhi. However, as Mr. Modi’s star has risen within the B.J.P., the coalition has weakened.

In June, Mr. Modi was appointed his party’s poll campaign head, indicating that he would be a strong contender to become its prime ministerial candidate. Soon afterward, the Janata Dal (United) led by Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, walked out of the alliance. Mr. Kumar said he did not want to be part of a coalition led by someone as controversial as Mr. Modi.

At one point, the National Democratic Alliance had more than 20 constituents. Today, it has less than half that number. After the exit of the Janata Dal (United) party from the alliance, The Sena, with 11 seats in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of Parliament, is arguably the B.J.P.’s most important ally.

Amit Dave/Reuters Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi speaking at Surat, in Gujarat, on January 4. 

Mr. Modi has been a polarizing figure not only within the alliance but also within his party. A senior B.J.P. leader, L.K. Advani, resigned last month from all organizational posts after the party chose Mr. Modi to lead its election campaign. Mr. Advani later withdrew his resignations at the urging of senior party leaders.

The Shiv Sena had supported Mr. Advani during this time, and in late June it criticized Mr. Modi in an editorial in its mouthpiece newspaper, Saamna. Sensing the resentment building up against him, Mr. Modi flew to Mumbai a few days later to mend bridges with Uddhav Thackeray, who took over the Shiv Sena after his father died in November.

Despite the cracks in the coalition with the B.J.P., the Sena, weakened by the death of its charismatic founder, the glue that held the organization together, is publicly taking a pragmatic stance.

“In order to defeat the Congress, the National Democratic Alliance needs as many allies as it can get,” said Sanjay Raut, a Shiv Sena lawmaker in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament. “Modi’s style of functioning does not concern the allies. It is the B.J.P.’s problem.”

Grappling as it is with its own existential problems, the Sena also needs the B.J.P. The younger Mr. Thackeray has not been able to exert the kind of hold over party workers that his father did. This makes some of them vulnerable to blandishments from other parties, especially the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party, which is part of the ruling coalition with the Indian National Congress, both in Delhi and the Maharashtra state government.

“The Shiv Sena’s lower cadre has become restless after Bal Thackeray passed away,” said Surendra Jondhale, a professor of political science at the University of Mumbai. “Other parties, especially the N.C.P., are trying to woo them, especially in rural areas.”

However, Bharat Kumar Raut, a Shiv Sena lawmaker in the Rajya Sabha, pointed out that other parties are also worried that their workers will cross over to rivals. “This is all part of pre-election musical chairs,” he said, even as he acknowledged that the Shiv Sena urgently needed firm leadership to prevent defections.

“After Thackeray’s death, weak leadership has been a problem, but Uddhav is now moving decisively,” he said.

The Shiv Sena has another worry: if it makes too many demands of its senior ally during this general election, the B.J.P. has an alternative in the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, whose ideology is very similar to the Shiv Sena’s.

The B.J.P.’s Maharashtra president, Devendra Fadnavis, visited Raj Thackeray, the estranged cousin of Uddhav Thackeray, at his Mumbai residence in early June, rattling the Shiv Sena. Also Raj Thackeray is close to Narendra Modi.

Although the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena did not win any seats in the 2009 general election, it notched 13 seats in the state election later that year, compared with the Shiv Sena’s 45. In the Mumbai municipal election last year, it won 28 seats, compared with the Shiv Sena’s 75. These were respectable results for such a young party, pitted against an organization founded in 1966.

Members of the B.J.P. have indicated that the party would welcome a grand coalition of all three parties, even though Raj Thackeray has not said anything so far. “If Modi shows that he is really serious about coming closer to the Shiv Sena, then Raj will also have to consider joining the coalition,” said Bharat Kumar Raut.

Sumana Ramanan works for Scroll.in, a digital daily that will be launched shortly.