People’s Court will decide the real Shiv Sena

BJP may have succeeded in breaking the Shiv Sena as we knew but the faction led by Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde will have tough questions to answer in the forthcoming elections to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The Shinde group which broke away from the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray has won the party title and symbol as per a ruling by the Election Commission of India. But the matter does not end here as the Thackeray faction is bound to move Supreme Court.

Political observers say the ECI decision was on expected lines and Uddhav Thackeray alleged that the Commission has played into the hands of the ruling BJP. Meanwhile, Supreme Court, which is hearing the dispute over disqualification of MLAs by a speaker whose authority was itself in question, will decide on referring the case to a larger bench. Then the ECI decision will also come up before the apex court.

Be that as it may, the fight between the two factions will continue in the streets of Mumbai and some parts of Maharashtra as the Shinde faction will try to take charge of the Shiv Sena offices controlled by the Thackeray followers. And plenty of heat and dust will be built as the BMC elections near. The poll schedule may soon be announced as the Shinde-Fadnavis government is bound to try to draw political mileage out of the Sena Vs Sena fight.

The undivided Shiv Sena reigned supreme at BMC for 25 years and the BJP’s Target No 1 is the country’s richest civic body with Rs 52,619 cr budget - for obvious reasons. Right from the night the Thackeray government’s government was pulled down, the Sena founder’s scion has been trying to cash in on the sympathy factor. Now, the faction feels that the factor could turn into a wave as it would whip up the 'Marathi Manoos’ card by playing up the ‘betrayal’ of Bal Thackeray’s ideals by breaking the party. The ECI ruling, though a setback as the Sena founder’s family lost the party name and the popular bow-and-arrow symbol, could actually turn out to be the proverbial last straw for Uddhav.

Luckily for Uddhav and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on which the Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP are partners there are many other developments that could come handy. Maharashtra has been losing project after project to BJP run states such as Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. As things stand, the loss in terms of the capital flight could be as much as 1.4 lakh crores and the prestigious projects include the Vedanta-Foxconn semiconductor plant and the Tata-Airbus military transport aircraft venture. With these, the State also lost thousands of jobs thus adding salt to the wound called injustice to Maharashtra and Marathi people.

For long, there have been allegations that the Mo-Shah regime has been trying to develop Gujarat at the cost of Maharashtra. The attempts to hijack port traffic from Mumbai to Gujarat is cited as one of such attempts. Then the Bullet Train project which ultimately could serve the needs of Gujarat rather than Mumbai. Remember, the project is called Ahmedabad-Mumbai Bullet Train and not vice-versa.

As we discussed in earlier columns, BJP is always in an election mode and how can the party ignore Mumbai and Maharashtra? Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already focused on the double engine doctrine that would benefit Mumbai when he launched infrastructure projects worth close to Rs 40,000 crore last month. Much as he was touring Gujarat before the recent State Legislative Assembly elections, he would begin to hop-skip-and-jump to the country’s financial capital at regular intervals.

Though Marathi speaking population at 42 per cent is predominant in Mumbai, 30 per cent of the people are from the northern states, followed by 19 per cent Gujaratis. Despite attempts to whip up regional chauvinism, Mumbai by and large remained united and cosmopolitan and it will be so in the future as well. Every Mumbaikar is busy with his daily business and bread and not concerned much about political developments in the States of his origin – be they from the northern or the southern regions.

Shinde belongs to the hardline Shiv Sena which once ran campaigns against the South Indians, then Muslims and of late the North Indians. In fact, the BJP, which was once a ruling partner with the Sena, has a lot to answer in the North. Post Bal Thackeray era, his son Uddhav took a very soft stance while his nephew Raj Thackeray took a hard line against the North Indians. Even now, Uddhav has maintained his soft posture and began wooing the Uttar Bharatiyas many of whom have been living in Mumbai for generations.

Uddhav’s close aide and Sena MP Sanjay Raut has recently addressed a Press Conference alleging that some BJP leaders such as Kirit Somaiya with the help of builder lobby and industrialists proposed to make Mumbai a union territory. Such talk itself would fan hatred towards the Centre and will unite the majority Mumbaikars. Old timers would recall how a Congress leader whispered the idea of making Mumbai a UT and how the party badly lost the BMC elections, never to recover!

The NCP may have some presence in pockets of the city but the Congress has hardly anything to talk about in Mumbai as such. Yes, some Congress leaders at the local level would have the following. That’s about it. The sum and substance is that Uddhav and his son Aaditya will have to fight back with whatever followers that they are left with. I am saying this because the Shinde group, now called the Shiv Sena by ECI, will leave no stone unturned to engineer defections from the city’s rank and file – mainly the erstwhile corporators.

Will the betrayal plank work for Uddhav to bounce back? We shall keep a close watch as developments shape up. We shall also keenly observe as to what happened Shinde’s Shiv Sena after the BMC elections. Watch this space.

(The author is a Mumbai-based media veteran, known for his thought-provoking messaging).