We’ve been
liberally treated with political thrillers like that is happening in Maharashtra
at the moment across the country since the last few years, thanks to the
aggressive power-politics of the national ruling dispensation (BJP) which
fittingly matches its aggressive Hindutva nationalism. However, the present
game has been inevitable since the year 2019 when Shiv Sena (SS) parted ways
with the BJP after jointly fighting and winning the assembly elections, and
after a landslide victory for the alliance in 2014, on the CM post issue, and
forming a coalition government Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (Maharashtra
Development Front or MVA) with the Congress and the nationalist Congress (NCP).
For the last two and half years the state BJP has been a grumpy lot, alleging a
great betrayal by the SS and wanting desperately to avenge it; in fact, they’d
tried at least three times to derail the coalition so far. This last one, even
though the party has continued to be in denial about any involvement, has
proved to be the biggest coup within the Sena in history, threatening to
finally dislodge the Uddhav Thackeray led MVA government.
The most
definitive parameter of such political thrillers, the hotel-resort politics, is
very much there in this too: first the dissident MLAs (Member of Legislative
Assembly) led by Eknath Shinde, one of the senior-most and loyalist leaders of
the Shiv Sena, were lodged in a five-star resort in Surat, a city in the
BJP-ruled state of Gujarat, and then shifted unexpectedly at the dead of the
same night to a five-star venue in Guwahati, of course, the capital of another
BJP-ruled state of Assam with one of the most prominently aggressive national BJP
leaders, Himanta Biswa Sarma, being the Chief Minister there. Dissident leader
Eknath Shinde reportedly moved in there with around 30 supporting Sena MLAs
which has increased to 42 (total of 46 including independent MLAs), as claimed
by him on the morning of 23rd June, 2022, for which he’d provided
video proof too.
As per the
anti-defection law Shinde needs to ensure the support of at least 37 MLAs which
is two-thirds of the 55 SS MLAs in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly after
the 2019 assembly elections. With apparently more than the required number the
dissidents can now avoid disqualification and vote for the BJP in case of a
no-confidence motion or in terms of showing the numbers to the Governor of
Maharashtra to stake claim for the formation of a new Government with the BJP,
the traditional partner of the SS on the basic Hindutva issue till 2019. Buoyed
by this support Shinde has been claiming to be the leader of the ‘actual’ Shiv
Sena, wanting to retain its identity at any cost. So, now we’re faced with a
situation of a Shiv Sena without the Thackeray family whereas it was the
legendary Balasaheb Thackeray, father of the present CM Uddhav Thackeray, who
founded this party on 19th June, 1966 in the interests of protecting
the rights of the local Marathi population of the state.
Emotions ran
high last evening, the 22nd of June 2022, when Uddhav Thackeray, a
gentleman-politician as always, made an address in social media appealing to
all his MLAs to tell him face-to-face if they wanted him to resign that he said
he was ready to do anytime, instead of conspiring behind his back. He added
that his becoming the Chief Minister was only accidental which is actually true
as the coalition partners wouldn’t have agreed to a non-Thackeray for the post.
He also threw a kind of bait to Shinde, asking if they could ensure a new Chief
Minister from his party only in the new scenario. In a further confirmation of
his intentions Uddhav, found to be COVID positive in the morning, along with
his family vacated his official CM residence Varsha late evening the same day,
and moved to his family home Matoshree, around 9 km away. And we’d witnessed a
spontaneous burst of love and support throughout his short journey home with thousands
of Shiv Sainiks (Sena workers) and supporters accosting the traditional Sena
leader and his bright promising minister-son Aaditya Thackeray on the streets
of Mumbai. In my experience of over three decades this could only be only the
second occasion of a spontaneous mass outburst of loyalty for a Thackeray, than
during the days when Balasaheb lay seriously ill at Matoshree and eventually
passed away in 2012.
Perhaps,
somewhat nonplused by those emotional proceedings Eknath Shinde shied away from
his intended press conference in Guwahati last evening, and instead shot off an
‘emotional’ letter to Uddhav this morning alleging a saga of sheer neglect to
the SS loyalists by his coalition government that consistently preferred those
of Congress and NCP only. However, despite the charged emotional drama MLAs
kept on defecting from the Uddhav group and flying over to Guwahati, at times
accompanied by BJP leaders.
The main spokesperson
of the SS, Sanjay Raut has been saying repeatedly that the CM was not going to
resign and that once the ‘imprisoned’ flock of MLAs returns to Mumbai it’d be
an entirely different scenario as he has claimed to have been in touch with at
least twenty dissident MLAs. He has also said that the traditional supporters
of the SS have reiterated their binding faith in the Thackerays, have called
the Sena dissidents as ‘traitors’ and have warned that they’d defeat them in
the next assembly elections. All these claims and counter-claims about the
numbers make this abundantly clear that this political thriller is far from
over at the moment. Coincidentally, the 80-year-old Governor of Maharashtra has
been in a hospital after being proved COVID positive.
Eknath Shinde has
made it clear that his fight is to save the SS from this ‘unnatural’ coalition
and to reunite the party with its traditional Hindutva partner BJP. Therefore,
basically, Shinde wants to be the leader of the ‘actual’ or the breakaway
faction of the Shiv Sena, and does not want to merge with the BJP. If he’d like
to be considered for the post of the new CM, the BJP is extremely unlikely to agree
to that with the dislodged former CM Devendra Fadnavis waiting patiently for
over two and half years. Further, the Election Commission has to come into the
scenario later as to which faction is going to have the right to continue using
the old party symbol. Whatever be the future proceedings of this number-game,
now apparently not at all in favor of Uddhav Thackeray, a Shiv Sena without the
Thackeray family is not a concept that’d have acceptance from the larger
Marathi people of the state.
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