BJP tightens grip on Maharashtra

WE Catholics use an Italian word, “Papabili’, to identify Cardinals who have the qualities to become the Pope. There is no corresponding term in the lexicon of politics, but if there was, it would surely be used for Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who has done wonders for the BJP in the 2024 Assembly elections and the recent civic polls.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath are often mentioned as the contenders to succeed PM Narendra Modi as and when he steps down. To that list, Fadnavis’ name has to be added. He has divided and weakened Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) of Sharad Pawar, who was once hailed as the Maratha strongman but has now been reduced to a mere shadow of his former self.

Playing on the ambitions and weaknesses of his political opponents, Fadnavis first lured Eknath Shinde, a Shiv Sainik from Mumbai’s neighbouring Thane district who had risen from the ranks, to jump ship and join forces with the Hindutva brigade. Then he repeated the exercise with Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit. Shinde had been fearing stagnation within the Shiv Sena as the compulsions of dynastic rule had closed the doors for his progress.

Shinde was made the Chief Minister of one of India’s most prosperous states, thereby sealing the split in the ranks of the “Marathi Manoos”.

Bal Thackeray, the Sena patriarch, had played on the sensibilities of the Marathi-speaking residents of Mumbai by convincing them that “outsiders” (those who spoke Gujarati at home) were robbing them of their patrimony and Tamil as well as other southerners were depriving them of white-collar jobs which could assure them of a better life. Balasaheb was an orator par excellence, a notch above even Modi. Like the Prime Minister, he could convince his audience that black was white, and vice versa. Such is the power of words when uttered by seasoned orators!

Marathi-speaking people residing in Mumbai were mainly from the coastal villages and small towns south of the city in the Konkan area of the state. They joined the Sena in hordes. When asked to use muscle power to drive home their point, they did so enthusiastically. The police were not keen to stop their excesses as the ruling Congress in those days was using the Sena to neutralise the Left parties which constituted the main opposition to its rule. The government’s pusillanimity encouraged the Sena, which soon became a force to reckon with in Mumbai.

I once had a conversation in New Delhi with then Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani. The BJP had decided to hitch its wagon to the Sena to gain a foothold in Maharashtra. I told Advani about the methods used by Bal Thackeray to assert the Sena’s dominance. I thought I was warning him of the dangers involved, not realising that the BJP was taking a calculated decision to ride on the back of the “tiger”. Advani looked at me with a glint in his eyes and dismissed my views as those of one who did not understand politics. (he was correct).

The BJP is now firmly installed as the Sena’s senior partner in Maharashtra. After the split in the Sena and the NCP, Fadnavis set his sights on ruling the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which boasts of an annual budget that exceeds that of some small states.

The Sena had dominated the municipality for more than two decades. It was widely rumoured that corporators appropriated 10 per cent share of the contracts signed within their jurisdiction. It was commonly understood in the city that the Sena could survive as an organised political party because of the pickings from the municipality, its sole source of funds when it was not part of Central or state governments.

Many Sena members, including corporators, crossed over to Shinde’s faction because they were deprived of their “subsistence”. The municipal elections were delayed by over three years to apparently enable Shinde to win over Sena corporators who found themselves powerless after the Mahayuti government appointed its own functionaries to manage the BMC’s affairs.

The Opposition’s repeated accusations of “vote chori” can be dismissed as the rant of poor losers, but one allegation is true. A lot of money was distributed among voters during the civic polls. Today, the BJP is easily the richest party in India. The high number of its corporators elected unopposed due to last-minute withdrawals by their opponents merits scrutiny. The BJP is known to use all means, fair or foul, to achieve its goal of an Opposition-free state. These unopposed victories of its candidates were possible largely through monetary inducements.

The latest defeat of the Sena faction led by Uddhav Thackeray and the NCP outfit headed by Sharad Pawar — who fought the Pune municipal election along with his estranged nephew — has been dubbed as the “death knell” for the two leaders. Sharad Pawar should have handed over the reins of his party to Ajit in view of age-related infirmities. He will find himself isolated now. But as far as Uddhav is concerned, I do not subscribe to the idea of writing him off just yet. Shinde has made inroads into Uddhav’s territory in Mumbai, but the latter’s faction has shown that it is still alive and kicking. In Marathi-speaking localities, it bested Shinde’s candidates in most of the seats it contested.

The Shinde faction has 29 seats in the BMC, while Uddhav’s faction and his cousin Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena together have 71. The BJP, with 89 seats, needs Shinde’s support to cross the half-way mark of 114. Shinde is using that as a tool to demand that his faction’s corporator be made Mayor of Mumbai, at least for the initial two-and-a-half years. It will be interesting to watch how the knotty issue is resolved.

The spectacle of two allies guarding their assets from poaching by the other is comic, to say the least. Shinde has moved his party’s corporators to a five-star hotel in the city. He obviously suspects his friend, Fadnavis, of trying to get some, if not all, of them to cross over to the all-conquering BJP.

Meanwhile, the saffron party’s Hindutva agenda is set to face resistance in West Bengal, Punjab and the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Religion-centric governance has not proved viable in Pakistan. Let’s hope we don’t follow in our neighbour’s footsteps.