India is socially diverse, but our politics is strangely homogeneous. Ideological differences between rival parties seem to matter not a jot. Legislators regularly and smoothly switch sides. In the 1970s, it could be said that all parties were mostly fifty shades of red, today all parties seem to be fifty shades of saffron. A week is a long time in politics goes the adage for British politics.
In India, a week can be an eternity. Until late June, the BJP had been regularly denouncing the corruption of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in irrigation and co-operative bank scams. Yet on July 2, Ajit Pawar of NCP, accused by his political opponents of involvement in both scams, was sworn in as dep-uty chief minister in a BJP-Shiv Sena alliance government. Ajit Pawar shares this post with former BJP chief minister Devendra Fadnavis who, in 2019, had vowed to dispatch Ajit Pawar to “chakki peesing” in jail. Ahead of general elections, this compromise seems to have been undertaken to bolster the ruling BJP’s strength in the 2024 battle.
