How Bal Thackeray handled rebellion in ranks | Mumbai news - Hindustan Times
close_game
close_game

How Bal Thackeray handled rebellion in ranks

By, Mumbai
Jul 02, 2022 08:54 AM IST

If there is something that stands out in the rebellion led by Eknath Shinde and his predecessors like Chhagan Bhujbal, Narayan Rane and Raj Thackeray, it is the way in which the Shiv Sena leadership and even the ordinary Shiv Sainik responded to the crisis.

In December 1991, Chhagan Bhujbal, an MLA from Mazgaon in south Bombay and a close associate of Balasaheb Thackeray, dropped a bombshell when he announced that he was quitting the party to join Congress which was then in power in the state.

Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray. (HT photo by Vijayanand gupta/FILE)
Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray. (HT photo by Vijayanand gupta/FILE)

This enraged the street fighting Sainiks so much that they charged to attack him and he had to be saved by the then home minister Dr Padamsinh Patil, a former wrestler.

Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now.

Bhujbal became a minister in the Congress government but often found his public engagements in Mumbai and elsewhere being disrupted by aggressive Sainiks. In the 1995 polls, Bhujbal (by now with the Nationalist Congress Party) was defeated by a Sainik, Bala Nandgaonkar.

If there is something that stands out in the rebellion led by Eknath Shinde and his predecessors like Chhagan Bhujbal, Narayan Rane and Raj Thackeray, it is the way in which the Shiv Sena leadership and even the ordinary Shiv Sainik responded to the crisis. If in the past the grassroots workers rallied around Balasaheb Thackeray, Sena leaders today admit to a virtual paralysis that has set in the party following the mass desertions led by Eknath Shinde.

Also Read | Maharashtra crisis: Conceded CM’s chair but key portfolios to remain with BJP

The events of the last two weeks have also underscored the absence of trouble-shooters in the party and that’s because Shinde himself was the Shiv Sena’s leading trouble shooter. He was a key player in shoring up independents and certain fence-sitters in support of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) ending the fiasco that was Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar’s 80-hour long government. When Uddhav Thackeray dispatched his close aide Milind Narvekar and former MLC Ravindra Phatak as his emissaries to negotiate with Shinde in Surat it turned out that Phatak had been in talks with Shinde all along and a day later had joined the rebel camp in Guwahati.

Contrast this with what happened in 2005 when Narayan Rane fell out with the Sena and joined the Congress. Bal Thackeray personally took charge of the situation to minimize damage to the party’s image and to ensure that legislators and party corporators from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) did not join ranks with Rane. Thackeray put his fire-and-brimstone oratory to great use against rebel Rane. Similar efforts to arrest the damage were undertaken after his nephew Raj left the Shiv Sena a few months later.

“There is a huge difference between what happened then and the events unfolding now… then, we were in the opposition. This is a peculiar situation as the split has happened when we were in power. Our ministers have deserted the Shiv Sena to rebel,” said a veteran Shiv Sena leader, who is also an elected representative.

He noted that earlier, when there were defections from the ranks, “there would be a huge backlash from Shiv Sainiks. For example, we had ensured that Bhujbal could not move around freely in Mumbai,” the leader said. Today, even the ‘Matoshree,’ loyalists will concede that the extent of this rebellion reveals the deep vein of anger against the leadership in the party. The Sena veteran attributes it to different styles of functioning of the leadership then and now. While Bal Thackeray had the take no prisoners aggression, his son has a more hands- off style of leadership that has cut him off from the rank and file.

“Balasaheb’s word carried great weight. There was fear that Shiv Sainiks could hit the streets in protest (against rebels). He also had an emotional connect with leaders and Sainiks, and would directly contact potential defectors and mollify them,” said a senior Shiv Sena leader, who was part of the crisis management effected by the party after Rane and Raj quit in 2005 within months of one another. “When the two left, Balasaheb personally contacted people and asked them to stay back, and his word was respected by all. Every vibhag pramukh (division chief) in Mumbai was mobilised on both occasions to ensure that the cadre did not split,” he explained.

Also Read | Shinde-Fadnavis bromance status could be ‘complicated’

The party grapevine has it that when a certain senior party leader, who later scaled great heights in the Shiv Sena, was planning to join the Janata Party, he was “persuaded” by Shiv Sainiks to refrain from doing so. Similarly, some MLAs who were planning to join Bhujbal’s rebellion were also physically dissuaded. Anand Dighe the Thane strongman and Eknath Shinde’s mentor, was one of the men who stood with Balasaheb and dissuaded the rebels personally. Moreover, the emotional pull of the Sena chief was such that when Raj Thackeray formed his MNS, many in the ranks refused to join him though they liked him personally because they did not want to leave ‘saheb’ (Thackeray) in his lifetime.

Unlike Uddhav who had no clue about the rebellion brewing in the ranks and was taken by surprise when Shinde left for Surat, Thackeray Senior had a sharp intelligence gathering network and he could reach out to people beyond his immediate circle for inputs. He knew hundreds of Sainiks by name and face. But the biggest difference between father and son, points out the leader was that while Balasaheb Thackeray ruled by remote control Uddhav Thackeray became chief minister thereby binding himself to certain rules, and also the job took away his attention from managing the party which in itself is a fulltime job, says the disillusioned leader.

Some prominent Shiv Sena rebels:

Adv Balwant Mantri (1967)

Shared the dais with Bal Thackeray at the Shiv Sena’s first rally on October 30, 1966, but became its first rebel by seeking inter-party democracy. He was beaten up and paraded by Shiv Sainiks at Dadar.

Arun Mehta (1974)

The general secretary of the Bharatiya Kamgar Sena (BKS) joined the Congress after differences with the leadership.

Bandu Shingre (1975)

A strongman from the Parel-Lalbag belt, Shingre quit the party over differences after Thackeray supported Ramrao Adik of the Congress in the 1974 Lok Sabha by-polls. Floated a ‘Prati Shiv Sena’ or parallel Shiv Sena and is reputed to have pelted stones at the Shiv Sena Bhavan.

Dr Hemchandra Gupte (1977)

The Shiv Sena’s first mayor in Mumbai and the former physician of the Thackeray family left the Shiv Sena after Thackeray supported his friend Murli Deora (Congress) in the election of the Mumbai’s mayor instead of the opposition’s Sohansingh Kohli as had been decided. Gupte was later elected to the assembly as a Janata Party nominee by defeating Sena’s Manohar Joshi from Dadar.

Chhagan Bhujbal (1991)

The rough-and-ready Bhujbal, who was once seen as the veritable number two in the Sena, quit with 17 MLAs in December 1991 when the winter session of the state legislature was on at Nagpur. Bhujbal was upset at Manohar Joshi being appointed the leader of the opposition.

Narayan Rane (2005)

The leader of opposition and former chief minister fell out with the Shiv Sena after a long-drawn power sharing tussle with Uddhav Thackeray.

Raj Thackeray (2005)

Uddhav’s first cousin twice over, Raj, who was once seen as his uncle’s political heir, quit the Shiv Sena after a leadership battle with his cousin. Raj walked out with virtually the entire Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena (BVS) that he led, and launched the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in 2006.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Share this article
SHARE
Story Saved
Live Score
OPEN APP
Saved Articles
Following
My Reads
Sign out
New Delhi 0C
Friday, March 29, 2024
Start 14 Days Free Trial Subscribe Now
Follow Us On