Maharashtra: Where There’s One Chair And No Music

What was that game we all played when we were children? Musical chairs, right, where “strategy” used to be t to leave your chair till one in front of you didn’t become free. Everybody h same strategy. We were children. se Maharashtra politicians are up against politicians, some of thugs while ors are battle-scarred horses. y kw “delay” in government formation means more money in ir pockets. y all say it’s for party as y play poker with people’s lives. 
 
only Common Minimum Programme (CMP) for remarkably greedy politicians in Maharashtra unable to form a government for over three weeks is a five- letter world called chair. And we, people of India have option but to face many discordant tes y strum and whistle through mikes and gently lowered windows of cars in Delhi lest y choke.  During election campaign, people lost ir lives when PMC bank shut shutter without a warning. n Chief Minister of Maharashtra BJP’s Devendra Fnavis has blood on his hands too. 

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Winning elections is one thing. Governing is something else. One part of India is gasping for clean air, in ar, re is water, in a third, re is are floods, agrarian crisis, public health disasters. Meanwhile, politicians across board are willing to be bought and sold in market like rotten eggs and commentators have turned into contortionists and quick-change artists hoping y’ll get invited to television studios every day with a new ory. Most have day jobs, but TV prattle is good
 
As India’s ecomic capital went to vote last month, BJP-Shiv Sena grandiose sounding ‘Mahayuti’ of 35 years crashed with Shiv Sena leer Uddhav Thackeray insisting a 50 – 50 sharing of Chief Minister’s post for 2.5 years and portfolios and former BJP Chief Minister Devendra Fnavis refusing both demands. Something like this is imaginable is people around table are civilised. y’ve proved y are t. As game of musical chairs continues even as Parliament meets for last session of year, BJP has wowed it will form government. Mahayuti alliance which swept Maharashtra on October 24th toger won 161 seats, eugh to form government, we are told, is still happening. NCP meanwhile got 54 seats and Congress brought up rear with 44 in bag, we are told, is still happening. Prime Minister Narendra Modi scolded parliamentarians today and asked m to learn from good example of – hold your breath – NCP, among ors. If that is t a warning, what is it? 

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People – young and infirm, women who h walked for miles to reach polling booths with ir hearts for a compass – are w stranded wondering where y went wrong. It is our country, it is vote that politician come to beg when y need us, y walk into our potholes and drink water from our dirty drains. y embrace our scabs for that instant when lights are focussed and sit on floor with poor and outcast in leaky homes and dry rotis and onions. y rush with cameras when bridges collapse on our hes when our children die because re are stock-outs in pharmacies and government dispensaries, while y fly to distant lands to cure a toothache.  Once elected y do t return for next five years, time eugh to make so much money that international Mafiosi looks like fidgeting amateurs.  w, after exploiting our wretchedness and pain y are to unable to share a chair. 
 
Fiery speeches and finger-pointing will t ease BJP out of this crisis it has failed to rein in. y are coming across as opportunistic as ors and increasingly ordinary – a far cry from India y promised in 2014. People I have spoken to say this – if only y could pull ecomy up, many issues would fall into place. For that to happen Maharashtra has to be allowed to stand, its business-convening authority and international reputation is given a stable platform to stand on. 
 
Money will only go where money feels safe and it can grow. Last time I wrote this context of Budget. I recall it w in context of electorate as an investment. Good governance looks at electorate as an investment in nation-building just like good doctors look at public health as absence of disease. re is just so much an educated and ambitious youth can take.  re is only a point to which people will say re is alternative. History is replete with examples where crises have thrown up alternatives. 

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Sonia Gandhi’s attempts to foist Rahul Gandhi as India’s Prime Minister to keep Nehru-Gandhi line going has failed. Shar Pawar has mand to get his daughter Supriya Sule installed as a politician – smartest thing she’s said to date is that women lawmakers discuss saris in Parliament. Karnataka, Tamil Nu, Telangana are also going strong in line line-up and Thackerays are attempting a third-generation coup. 
 
But, re’s a bigger, much more real and growing India out re, learning in leaps in bounds and demanding respect. We are watching this game where re are only empty vessels and chairs. We are t laughing. We will strike when our time comes. Keep faith – things are crumbling even as I write this.

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( views and opinions expressed within this article are personal opinions of author. facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in article do t reflect views of Republic TV/ Republic World/ ARG Outlier Media Pvt. Ltd.)