Feb 02 : The Shiv Sena and the BJP, allies for close on three decades, find themselves in a position of likely public confrontation over an issue that is of deep political concern to both. The two parties have faced difficulties before on matters such as distribution of seats before an election. This is common enough between allies. But the partners had never before come to the possibility of a public spat.

The Sena’s parochial hardline on the privileging of native Marathi-speakers in Mumbai over other Indians has troubled the BJP for some time. The question had become dodgy for the alliance a year ago before the 2009 general election when the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, the Shiv Sena breakaway, upped the ante against long-term Mumbai residents of UP and Bihar origin. The BJP then managed to paper over the issue by taking the broad theoretical view that all Indians were free to go anywhere in the country. This time around matters appear to have come to a head.With the Bihar Assembly election due this year and the UP polls barely two years away, the BJP can no longer adopt a hands-off stance towards the position of North Indians in Mumbai. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat lay down the ground rules a few days ago — don’t denigrate Hindi and North Indians. It was a logical followup to instruct RSS volunteers to seek to prevent actions that hurt Mumbaikars of North Indian origin. This fits perfectly with the basic RSS position that all Hindus, irrespective of background, must come together. The new BJP chief, Nitin Gadkari, was caught on the wrong foot initially, for much of his politics in Mumbai has been in collaboration with the Sena, but it is impossible for the BJP to overlook RSS instructions. Besides, the party will commit hara-kiri in Bihar and UP if it wasn’t seen to take a forthright stance against the Maharashtra chauvinists.From the BJP’s standpoint, the Sena — which has no base outside Maharashtra — has shown less accommodation than it could have in a high-stakes election year in Bihar. Two considerations explain this. In the recent Maharashtra polls, the BJP — for the first time — managed to pull off a marginally higher tally than the Sena, although the latter treats the state as its stomping ground in the context of its dealings with the BJP. Thus the Sena might not really feel bad if the BJP is discomfited. The BJP’s overall national stock matters somewhere even in Maharashtra seat negotiations. It should be remembered that there has always been a subterranean spirit of competition, even mild tension, between the BJP and the Sena. At core both are animated by Hindu chauvinism, while the Sena has a further coating of Maharashtrian chauvinism. This silent spirit of competition will be hard to contain if the BJP once again scores over the Sena in the state. Also, the Sena now finds itself under attack on home turf due to clear and direct competition from the rabble-rousing MNS. In order to appear as the genuine article, it has chosen to adopt a high-voltage stance which explains its recent attacks on celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar and Mukesh Ambani for suggesting that Mumbai belongs to all Indians. In a bid to refurbish both its Hindu and Maharashtrian credentials, the Sena has also launched a vicious attack on filmstar Shah Rukh Khan, going to the shameful extent of calling him a “traitor”. The reason why Sena-BJP relations have reached this pass is that the electoral fortunes of both have declined in their respective spheres of influence in the immediate past. Consequently, both are embarked on a salvage act even if this means making differences public.