Maharashtra churn reflects parties’ turf war

At the point where politics intersects crime — organised and random — lies a subterranean habitat which survives on edginess, unfulfilled ambitions, overdrive, hunting for cat’s paws and foils and scapegoating the suckers. The habitation can exist undisturbed until a disaster strikes. This is what happened on February 26, when a parked SUV packed with gelatine sticks was found outside the home of industrialist Mukesh Ambani in south Mumbai. The discovery set off a chain of events that sucked into a vortex the Maharashtra government, its principal protagonists, and the cops and an ecosystem they had created to protect and nurture their interests and that of their political masters. The under surface dynamics that safeguarded the politicians and their minions spilt over and bubbled on the outside, revealing an aspect of Maharashtra that was not glimpsed since the years when the “underworld” ruled the roost.

While the implications were not as menacing for the larger population as when the “gangs” were on the rampage, the unfolding saga cannot but disconcert and unsettle the political system, which in Mumbai hinges on a disparate coalition of the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress.

To recapitulate, after the Scorpio was “discovered”, its owner Mansukh Hiren, a Thane businessman, was traced. Three days after the revelation, Hiren was murdered. A low tide washed up his body into a marshy Mumbra creek, flowing off the Mithi river. The anti-terrorist squad nabbed Sachin Vaze, a former assistant police inspector, who joined the Sena officially in 2009, and was reinstated after 16 years. Vaze was believed to be close to the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) dispensation. However, following indications that he might have turned an approver to help the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and other Central agencies probing the developments, the Sena distanced itself from the prime accused in Hiren’s killing. Vaze had used Hiren’s vehicle for the past four months.

Parambir Singh, the Mumbai police commissioner, who was reportedly an appointee of Sharad Pawar, the NCP president, was replaced by Hemant Nagrale, cherry-picked by Uddhav Thackeray, the chief minister. The buck stopped with Anil Deshmukh, the Home Minister from the NCP, who put Pawar in a tight spot. Thackeray took advantage of Pawar’s perceptible vulnerability at that point and posted other Marathi-speaking officers, Vishwas Nagare Patil and Milind Bharambe, in important positions in the police. The underlying political message was he would preside over an order that “favoured” the Marathi-speaking population. Inescapably but deliberately, Thackeray deepened the political-police nexus, more so at a time when the credibility of both seemed compromised. Confirming the point was Sandeep Pandey, the senior most cop who was passed over for Nagrale. Pandey protested in a missive to the CM which made no difference. Politics and partisanship were wedded to one another.

If Thackeray was blasé about the appointments, Pawar lurched into another crisis after Parambir Singh accused his Home Minister Deshmukh of directing his subordinates to extort Rs 100 crore every month from the business establishments. By then, it was apparent that Singh, once close to the MVA government, made “peace” with the Central agencies and resolved to squeal on and embarrass his former bosses. The Centre, for long wanting to put the MVA on the mat, carried off a minor coup by neutralising Singh. Was it enough to rock the boat?

Sanjay Raut, the editor of the weekly Samna, the Sena mouthpiece and a Rajya Sabha MP, penned a scathing edit in which he alleged Deshmukh should step down because he was a “suspect”. Raut added that Deshmukh was brought in under duress because Pawar’s first choice was Jayant R Patil or Dilip Walse Patil, neither of who wanted to sit on the hot seat. In Maharashtra, the Home Ministry was always a painful assignment because it entailed taking orders from multiple and conflicting command structures, in politics and outside. Disobeying one invited the peril of jeopardising one’s position or facing worse consequences.

Deshmukh’s predicament, coincidentally or otherwise, led to another event whose veracity is disputed. That was a “meeting” between Pawar, his NCP colleague, Praful Patel and Amit Shah, the BJP leader and Home Minister on March 26 at an industrialist’s home in Ahmedabad. The NCP denied the meeting but when Shah was asked about it at a press conference, his answer was open-ended, giving the development a piquant twist. If true, it says something of Shah’s indefatigability and his single-minded focus on realpolitik. In the midst of campaigning feverishly in West Bengal, Assam and elsewhere, he splashed his feet in Maharashtra’s muddied waters and agitated the currents. Enough for politicians to speculate over the choppy fate of the MVA! Indeed, on Monday, Chandrakant Patil, the Maharashtra BJP president, added his take to the story, saying the party would “respect” whatever call the high command took over striking an alliance.

At the heart of the Maharashtra churn are three protagonists: Pawar, Thackeray and Devendra Fadnavis, the BJP’s former CM and now the Opposition leader. Those who claim to know Pawar will affirm he will not go with the BJP, not because of ideological concerns but out of wanting to safeguard the political turf that he carved out and consolidated after hard work. His cheerleaders recalled that in November 2019, when the BJP nearly split the NCP and spirited away Ajit Pawar, his nephew, with the promise of making him the deputy CM in a coalition, Pawar’s reflexes kicked in, fast and furious. He aborted the BJP’s manoeuvre and didn’t reflect deep over installing a new coalition, knowing it might not be too stable.

For Thackeray, it’s about preserving the Sena’s legacy and proving to himself, his rank-and-file and the people of Maharashtra that he is no accidental CM. To Fadnavis, who looks like he has not come to terms with the loss of office, the compulsion is to stop the ground from beneath his feet from slipping. He has lost swaths of the BJP’s base to the Sena and the Congress, even in his own Nagpur fief. The BJP cannot let go of Maharashtra.