Coalitions, like marriages, are tested less by grand crises than by small humiliations. The ruling Mahayuti – a coalition between the Bharatiya Janata Party, Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and the late Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party - has found itself rattled by precisely such an episode. The proximate cause was the election of the Satara Zilla Parishad president. The controversy hinges on allegations that local police prevented some elected members from voting during the