Get down to business

The worst part of the Maharashtra political drama is hopefully over

A new government minus the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be in place in Maharashtra on December 1 after days of high drama that no democracy can be proud of. If the coming together of three parties with disparate and sometimes conflicting ideologies was disrespectful of the mandate, the skulduggery by the BJP and Ajit Pawar at the dead of night was an outright mockery of democratic norms and procedure. Now that the worst part of the drama is hopefully over, the bigger question is: Will the new government run? Or just sputter, enervated by its own contradictions, exhausted by