Shinde raises the stakes with Kamra attack, leaves Sena UBT wounded

Maharashtra's Eknath Shinde faces internal party challenges while consolidating power against Uddhav Thackeray, aiming for BMC elections amid defections.

Mumbai: One of the little-known facts about Maharashtra’s poker-faced deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde is that he has a great sense of humour and is always up for a good joke.

After Kamra shared the controversial song on his social media channels on Sunday, Shiv Sena workers vandalised the Habitat Studio in Khar where his comedy show was recorded, while another group of Shiv Sainiks held a protest in Thane where they burned the comedian’s effigy.

As for his partymen vandalising the Mumbai venue where satirist Kunal Kamra shot his latest video lampooning a whole lot of worthies, including him, Shinde told the BBC: “I don’t condone vandalism but my karyakartas (party workers) have feelings and for (certain) actions, there are reactions.”

In the shifting sands of Maharashtra politics, Eknath Shinde has used the two minutes of Kunal Kamra’s over 45-minute-long comedy special ‘Naya Bharat,’ and the vandalism his party unleashed, to cement his position as the true claimant of Balasaheb Thackeray’s legacy.

It’s a process that started in June 2022 when Shinde--virtually unknown outside Maharashtra—became chief minister after walking away with 40 Shiv Sena lawmakers. The election commission of India subsequently held that his faction had the right to the party’s name and also its bow and arrow symbol. And yet, Shinde could never quite shake off jibes of being traitorous and his faction as easily bribed. His government was routinely derided by the opposition as “mindhe sarkar” (a government indebted to the BJP) and heckled with slogans like “pannas khokhe, ekdum OK” (alluding that each of the defecting MLAs had been bought over with ₹50 crore).

But after the Mahayuti’s emphatic win in November 2024 Assembly elections in which Shinde’s party got 57 seats as opposed to Shiv Sena (UBT)’s 20, Shinde began to claim that the question, ‘Which is the real Shiv Sena’ had been settled in the people’s court. Conversely though, despite doing well, Shinde lost his chief minister’s position to Devendra Fadnavis whose party won 132 seats. It is in the backdrop of these internal tussles and the all-important elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) slated for later this year, that Shinde’s out-sized response to Kamra’s lampooning has to be contextualised.

Shinde knows his continued political relevance hinges on finishing off Uddhav Thackeray politically so that the way is cleared for the Bhartiya Janata Party to sweep the BMC elections for the first time ever. It was the last BMC elections, held in 2017, when the BJP came within kissing distance of the Shiv Sena, that started the cleave between the two longstanding ideological allies. The Thackerays’ political clout comes from their control of the BMC and thereby Mumbai—the country’s commercial nerve centre.

After splitting the party, walking away with its name, symbol and a majority of the lawmakers, Shinde has launched a fresh operation to decimate Uddhav Thackeray. He calls it ‘Operation Tiger.’

The Modus Oprendi

Outside Mumbai, the Shiv Sena has had one stronghold: the long Konkan coast comprising Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg. The region has four Parliament seats and 15 Assembly seats. In 2014 Sena won 7 of these and 9 seats in 2019. However, after the split in the party, the Thackeray-led faction won only one assembly seat in the region. Rajan Salvi, a three-term MLA for the undivided Shiv Sena chose to stay with Uddhav Thackeray. He was called more than ten times by the anti-corruption bureau in the last two years but remained steadfastly loyal to the Thackeray family. In 2024, he claims he lost the election from Rajapur constituency to a Shinde candidate because he had been deprived of funds by the party to fight the election. “When I went to Uddhav saheb to complain about lack of funds, I was badly snubbed,” he told HT. The old loyalist joined Eknath Shinde’s party on February 13. Shortly after, Sanjay Kadam, Sena UBT’s candidate from Dapoli, Konkan, too defected to Eknath Shinde’s camp.

Uddhav Thackeray’s contention in the Supreme Court to retain party name and symbol was that while Shinde may have defected with a few MLAs the rank and file of the party was still with him. In the last four months since the Mahayuti government came back to power under Fadnavis, Shinde has inflicted a thousand nicks and cuts to Shiv Sena (UBT). Scarcely a week goes by when a handful of Sena (UBT) don’t switch sides. In the last BMC the Shiv Sena had 92 corporators. Fifty-five of them have gone over to Shinde since December. Additionally, party office-bearers, former corporators, district heads have moved en masse. They cut across regions and caste lines. On March 6 alone, former Sena MLAs from Solapur Uttam Khandare and Ratikant Patil and the Sena (UBT)’s Solapur district chief Amar Patil, joined Eknath Shinde, leaving Thackeray without a single consequential leader in the region. While Khandare belongs to the Scheduled Caste, Ratikant Patil and Amar Patil are from the influential Lingayat community.

“The idea is to ensure that the Thackeray faction is not left with any local leaders on ground. Some of them have lost elections and yet we are bringing them to our fold so that tomorrow even if Thackeray manages to gain some sympathy among the voters, he would be hard pressed to get boots on the ground who can run either the party or the election machinery,” said a key member of Shinde’s think tank who did not want to be quoted.

Former Shiv Sena corporator Rajul Patel who had vocally opposed Eknath Shinde when he split the party, joined him this January. She told HT she decided to switch after being denied an Assembly ticket from Versova, her area of influence.

“Though Eknath Shinde has lost post of the CM he has portfolios like urban development and housing and has the power to grant favours and get work done for local leader, which Thackeray can’t,” says political analyst Hemant Desai. “Since Shinde lacks organisational strength on his own he is importing readymade leaders from Uddhav Thackeray’s party.”

Earlier this year Shinde hired an agency, Showtime which has been tasked to identify local leaders across the state from Sena (UBT) and lure them to cross over. There has been a steady trickle since. From Palghar, former municipal council president Priyanka Patil and three former corporators joined along with deputy city chief Pravin Patil. From Navi Mumbai three of Sena’s former corporators have defected as has the party’s Koparkhairane division chief Madhukar Raut along with several party workers. “During Assembly elections Uddhav Thackeray had said that he is going to the court of the people of Maharashtra to seek their verdict on which is real Shiv Sena. People elected 57 of our MLAs and showed him which is the real Shiv Sena. This flow of party workers joining Shiv Sena will only increase in the coming days,” said Shinde at a public function in Mumbai recently.

Keeping an eye on the BMC polls later this year, Shinde fought to become Mumbai City’s guardian minister along with Thane which is his pocket borough. As guardian minister he can sanction funds under district planning and development committee (DPDC). This comes handy to oblige local leaders or legislators looking for funds for work in their areas. At his very first meeting, except for Aaditya Thackeray most of the local lawmkers from the city were present. “Aaditya saheb may feel bad but we needed to be there to get funds for our projects,” said a lawmaker from Sena UBT.

But it’s not just Uddhav Thackeray’s party, Shinde has also been poaching leaders from other parties in a bid to shore up his forces. On March 10, former Congress MLA from Pune Ravindra Dhangekar joined Shiv Sena. Sharad Sonawane, an independent MLA from Junnar in Pune district too followed suit. “Shinde saheb is being constantly side-lined by CM Fadnavis. In order to bargain from a position of strength he has decided to expand our party,” said a Shiv Sena MP, unwilling to go on-record.

Thackeray’s response

When Shinde first started poaching, most Sena UBT leaders were surprised by the reaction of the Thackerays. Both Uddhav and Aaditya Thackeray’s stand was “Whoever wants to go can leave.” In January, Aaditya Thackeray told the media, “Whoever is going out of the party is ding so for personal gain. Neither are they worried about their city nor about Maharashtra. We are not going to stop anyone. You will soon see a new generation of leaders emerge in the coming days.”

But the steady desertions have caused panic and unease. At a recent party meeting at Chiplun, Bhaskar Jadhav, party group leader in the Assembly, said decision making within the party had to change, else the party, he said, woud become like the Congress with no courage left to sack non-performing office bearers, he added.

Since then, Uddhav Thackeray, often charged with being unavailable to party rank and file, has started taking regular meetings to stop his fleeing horde. He has also obviously softened his stance towards Devendra Fadnavis amid rumours in Mumbai of a rapprochement between the two former partners. While Aaditya Thackeray, in his capacity as Worli MLA has been meeting Fadnavis, the party mouthpiece Saamna recently praised Fadnavis’s efforts to turn Maoist-affected Gadchiroli into a steel industry hub.

But Thackeray’s biggest challenge comes from a paucity of funds that lubricated the party’s vast shakha network in the past. “Programmes like football and cricket tournaments, haldi-kumkum ceremonies, satyanarayan poojas in localities, blood donation camps have all slowed down for want of funds. “Shinde on the other hand, has been generously doling money for such programmes, luring even more people to his side,” says a Sena UBT leader, a bit forlorn. “Our party was never rich,” say Sena UBT leader Vinayak Raut. “Our workers satiate themselves with a vada pav. We are rich in strength due to our workers and the number of honest workers in our party has not reduced.’’

Rahool Kanal, Shinde’s social media head, and the man who led the vandalism at Kunal Kamra’s Khar venue, was once a close friend and aide of Aaditya Thackeray until he switched over. “The earlier Shiv Sena used was a cadre-based party. Cadres needs support for daily activities like gutter and meter. Of late, I have not seen one video of any Shiv Sena UBT functionary helping people in any BMC ward or at a police station,’’ he told HT. “If a politician earns ₹100, he spends ₹60 on his people and voters but in the case of Shiv Sena UBT, they don’t spend ₹10 even if they earn ₹100,” he said.

Kanal who is out on bail says he does not regret his actions at Khar. The videos of the vandals destroying the space only serve his cause. He understands that whether it was Balasaheb Thackeray’s Sainiks digging the Wankhede pitch or him leading the vandals at Habitat Studio the visual is the signal for the hardcore Sainik. Vibhag Pramukh Kunal Sarmalkar who led the attack with Kanal says, “The Shiv Sena came up on the back of agitation. Balasaheb Thackeray harboured Sainiks who fought on the streets. The present Sena UBT only has a gang of sycophants who prostrate before the Thackerays. Shinde saab is not like that.”