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Maha govt on a knife’s edge as leader splits Sena’s flock
Shinde said he would never “cheat for power” but later in the day, appeared to have rebuffed overtures from two Thackeray emissaries who flew to Surat to speak to him.
The Maharashtra government plunged into crisis on Tuesday morning after simmering discontent within the Shiv Sena boiled over and a senior minister and around 30 legislators from the party moved to a resort in neighbouring Gujarat, in a precursor to a possible split in the party and a threat to the survival of the ruling coalition.
Urban development minister Eknath Shinde left Mumbai on Monday night, shortly after voting ended in the legislative council polls, where the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) suffered an embarrassing defeat as 12 members of the Sena appeared to cross-vote in favour of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate. This was the second defeat of the alliance after the shock loss of its candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls.
Shinde’s move, people familiar with the matter said, seem to have been driven more by internal Sena factors – chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s illness and relative isolation; and the growing prominence of Sanjay Raut and Aaditya Thackeray – than by external ones, such as the BJP’s influence, which has typically been the case in other states that have seen similar situations (Karnataka in 2018; Madhya Pradesh in 2020).
Shinde said he would never “cheat for power” but later in the day, appeared to have rebuffed overtures from two Thackeray emissaries who flew to Surat to speak to him. Thackeray and Shinde spoke on the phone for about 10 minutes but it wasn’t clear whether any understanding was reached, said a Sena functionary.
“We are staunch Shiv Sainiks of Balasaheb who gave us lessons on Hindutva. We will never cheat for power and will never abandon the teachings of Balasaheb and Anand Dighe for power,” Shinde tweeted in Marathi.
But Sena leaders aware of developments said the 58-year-old leader wanted to have an alliance between Sena and the BJP on the Hindutva agenda. But the party said that it does not work with “conditions”, added the leaders. “He (Shinde) said that his demand was Sena-BJP alliance. He alleged that NCP was finishing off Sena in the state. Shinde seemed adamant on his demand,” said a senior party functionary, who asked not to be named.
There are 288 members in the state assembly, of which one seat is vacant. The Shiv Sena has 55 members, the Nationalist Congress Party 53, and the Congress 44. They have the support of three smaller parties and nine independent members. Together, the MVA has 166 members. The BJP has 106 lawmakers. It is backed by two smaller parties and four independents. Together, its strength is 112.
Outside these two formations, there are nine lawmakers across six parties.
With around 30legislators, the Shinde faction is well short of the 37 needed to meet the criterion set by the anti-defection law. That could mean their disqualification, which will make it easy for the MVA to pass a floor test.
Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut said the BJP was trying to pull down the MVA government but the conspiracy won’t succeed. “The Sena MLAs are being kept under the watch of the Gujarat police (where the BJP is in power). Some of the MLAs have said that their lives are in danger,” he said.
In the meeting of party legislators on Tuesday morning, a resolution was proposed and passed to remove Shinde as the group leader in the legislature, to not give him any powers over the party legislators. Raut announced the move to replace Shinde with Sewri legislator Ajay Chaudhary on Tuesday afternoon. The meeting was attended by 18 members, said a Sena insider,but Raut insisted that 33 were present.
The BJP , which, with its allies, has 112 seats in the house right now, is unlikely to muster the strength to form a government – a situation that is unlikely to change even if it manages to win around 30 seats vacant (on account of the disqualifications) when the by-election is held, although the situation could change if it can get more legislators from the MVA to resign. Soon after Shidne’s move, the BJP’s Devendra fadnavis flew to Delhi for meetings with the party’s central leadership.
“We are a political party and if somebody comes with a proposal we will surely consider it in the interest of the people of Maharashtra,” said state BJP chief Chandrakant Patil.
The focus now shifts to the other parties in the MVA — the Congress and the NCP — and their ability to keep their flock together; NCP chief Sharad Pawar met CM Thackeray late on Tuesday.
Cabinet ministers Balasaheb Thorat and Ashok Chavan of the Congress met Thackeray at his official residence in the evening where state NCP president and minister Jayant Patil was also present.
In an afternoon press conference, Pawar expressed confidence in the Sena’s ability to deal with an internal crisis. “Eknath Shinde never told us about his CM ambitions; I am sure Uddhav Thackeray will handle situation,” he said.
In a bid to placate Shinde, Sena chief and chief minister Uddhav Thackeray sent his close aide Milind Narvekar and legislator Ravindra Phatak to Surat. However, the Sena minister did not budge from his decision and questioned the party’s decision to remove him from the post of the group leader.
Thackeray sent his close aide, Milind Narvekar and lawmaker Ravindra Phatak to Surat. The duo had a 40-minute discussion with Shinde at the hotel, a person familiar with the matter said. Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray spoke over the phone but no pact was reached after Shinde demanded the restoration of the BJP-Sena alliance, which broke after the 2019 elections when the BJP refused to cede the chief minister’s position to the Sena.
“Eknath Shinde’s stand about an alliance with BJP came out of nowhere today. Milind Narvekar and [Ravindra] Phatak went to Surat to meet him. Shiv Sena is a party that does not work when conditions are put. The alliance of 25 years had to be cut off due to certain reasons. Everyone, including Eknath Shinde, is aware of why Shiv Sena split with the BJP. How Shiv Sena was insulted at every step. We are trying to hold talks. We are prepared to face any situation and we are trying to fight it out,” said Raut.
The Sena has faced similar crises in the past — in 1991, senior leader Chhagan Bhujbal, who was upset at not being appointed the leader of opposition quit, and in 2005, leader of opposition Narayan Rane and Raj Thackeray left.
Analysts said it was possible the BJP could push for President’s Rule in the state. For this to happen, governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari would have to recommend central rule in the state if a constitutional crisis persists.
For the BJP to gain a majority in the House, Shinde would have to garner enough lawmakers to evade the anti-defection law, legally break away from the Sena and back the BJP. The state also doesn’t have a full-time speaker, with Narhari Zirwal from the NCP currently the acting speaker.
The crisis in the Sena has been in the making for several months now, after Thackeray’s illness last year pushed him into near-complete isolation. Party insiders say Shinde, 58, who has been with the Sena for three decades felt slighted at the importance being assigned to MP Sanjay Raut and Thackeray’s son Aaditya.
The MVA came together as an ideologically disparate coalition in 2019 after the Sena broke ties with the BJP and NCP chief Sharad Pawar stitched together an alliance. It won a convincing majority in a floor test but has since been embattled by a number of corruption scandals, senior ministers jailed on graft charges and recent electoral losses.
For 31months now, the MVA has managed to balance the interests of three parties with widely differing agendas, but as evident during the Rajya Sabha polls in which the second candidate of the Shiv Sena lost, it is not an alliance that can swing things in its favour – at least not all the time.
People familiar with the matter said that the MVA struggled to square the interests and agendas of three parties that either have an overlapping or an inimical socio-political base, is a coalition of extremes, and has elected representatives and leaders competing with each other at the local level. There are around 68 constituencies where the BJP has little or no presence, but the Sena, NCP or Congress are at odds.
While the NCP, which controls crucial portfolios such as home, water resources, finance, rural development, public health and housing, tried to strengthen its local-level leaders and workers, their counterparts in the Sena found it tough to access Thackeray and his associates. This boosted the profile of Shinde, whose position as an alternative power centre was cemented, said the people said.
