Parties seem to be focusing on increasing their numbers, with prolonged political games breaking out over power and positions, instead of stable governance being provided to the masses

Civic bodies meant to be engines of local governance are now increasingly resembling arenas for political positioning. PIC/SAYYED SAMEER ABEDI

Politics today seems to follow a rule articulated by Devendra Fadnavis in 2019 when he argued that power is shaped less by political chemistry and more by hard arithmetic.

At the time, the remark sounded blunt and even cynical. But, today it reads less like a provocation and more like an accurate description of how politics functions and how alliances are formed, rearranged and justified once election results are declared.

This reality is playing out clearly across several civic bodies in Maharashtra. On paper, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena may not have contested every municipal corporation together but in many places, they did so as allies. 

In several civic bodies, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC), their combined strength is more than sufficient to elect a mayor without difficulty. 

The Opposition poses no serious numerical challenge, and voters have already delivered a clear and decisive mandate. Yet instead of translating this mandate into stable governance, what has followed is a quiet but intense power struggle within the alliance. 

Both parties are now focused on increasing their individual numbers, not to defeat........

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