How Uddhav defied allies to fight his corner

Despite the odds, Uddhav has struck a belligerent posture, in keeping with the Sena DNA

MUMBAI: Uddhav Thackeray has a long to-do list ahead of the Lok Sabha polls: restore Shiv Sena (UBT)’S legitimacy as one of the country’s key regional forces; resurrect his followers’ morale; crank up the party’s poll apparatus; and guard his flock from poachers.

For a start, however, Thackeray, wised up by the three-decade long poll tie-up with the BJP, has begun to assert himself within the MVA. That his party has got 21 seats to contest from, despite all the troubles it has faced, has boosted his positioning as the helmsman of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, the statelevel equivalent of the INDIA alliance.

Regardless of the stalemate over several seats — the Mumbai north, Sangli (both seats have been claimed by the Congress) and Bhiwandi (which the NCPSharad Pawar has bagged) —Thackeray cocked a snook at the others in the MVA and went ahead to announce his party’s candidates, including for the Sangli seat, much to the dismay of the Congress Party and the NCP (Sharad Pawar). Both allies were quick to rile Thackeray for his intransigence – exposing deep faultlines in the alliance.

With four of the six Mumbai Lok Sabha seats and a 22-strong share of the total tally of 48 seats under his belt, Thackeray has played his cards well, said poll experts on Saturday.

Sources said Thackeray was exasperated by the prolonged seat sharing parleys and the hemming and hawing of the Congress Party. “The Congress juggernaut moves at a snail’s pace, while we, Shiv Sainiks, are weaned on Balasaheb’s fast and furious style of functioning — and his ‘fatwas’,” said former minister Anil Parab, a close Uddhav aide.

Mood of ‘manoos’

Stating that it is good that Thackeray realised much earlier that both the Indian National Congress and the BJP are made of the same cloth when it comes to sharing power with their regional partners, Parab said, “National parties tend to treat their state-level allies like poor country cousins. We realised this during our alliance with the BJP.”

Thackeray’s strategy is to contest seats which boast a sizeable Marathi voting population, and which are set to witness straight BJP-SHIV Sena (UBT) fights, sources said. For instance, Mumbai North, Mumbai north-west and Mumbai south, Thane, Kalyan and Sangli, to name a few.

“Direct poll fights will give us a fair idea of our strength at the grassroots level. This will help us strategise for the next two elections. This time around we have to garner more than 22% votes across the state,” said Parab.

Thackeray has set his sights on the state legislative assembly elections, scheduled for October this year, and the statewide 2025 civic elections, including Mumbai and Thane. Both civic bodies boast overflowing coffers. “Thackeray can’t afford to let the BJP wrest the BMC from his party. The Mumbai civic body is intertwined with the Sena-balasaheb Thackeray myth,” said noted political analyst and writer Ramesh Oza. Recalling the 2017 BMC election which the Shiv SENA-BJP contested separately even while sharing power in the state, Oza said the undivided Sena bagged 84 of the total 227 BMC seats, while the BJP came perilously close by winning 82 seats.”

There is talk in political circles of a sympathy wave after all that he had to undergo for two years: a cataclysmic split in the Shiv Sena; loss of power, party symbol, nomenclature and the saffron flag — all in one fell swoop, and the ED crackdown on party functionaries.

“There certainly is an u p s u r g e o f e mpa t h y for Uddhav-ji. The Marathi ‘manoos’ is miffed

with the BJP for cleaving the Shiv Sena and the NCP, the two major regional parties, and for misusing power to finish off the MVA,” said Subhash Desai, senior party strategist and Thackeray’s long-time confidante.

However, political pundits, and many Shiv Sainiks too, are apprehensive if Marathi-speaking citizens will vote en bloc for Thackeray’s party. “In comparison, the Modi votebank seems more consolidated and cohesive,” said Archis Patil, a Sena watcher.

The dwindling Marathi ‘takka’ (percentage) in Mumbai — for which the Shiv Sena (UBT) has to blame itself for not having reined in its functionaries who often teamed up with GujratiJain builders for lucrative projects — is a big headache for Matoshree.

Alliance dynamics

There are other glitches too. For instance, Sharad Pawar doesn’t share Thackeray’s enthusiasm to have Prakash Ambedkar on board the INDIA bloc, it is learnt. True to his type, Ambedkar has been sowing confusion among allies by shifting his political gears.

However, Thackeray has refrained from joining issues with Ambedkar whose Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi polled over six per cent votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and ensured the defeat of two Congress stalwarts, Sushilkumar Shinde and Ashok Chavan.

Second, to what extent will the Shiv Sena (UBT) profit electorally from its tenuous partnership with the already beleaguered MVA? Third, transfer of votes, a key hurdle in alliance politics, is a cause for concern too. “We’ve been talking to voters in groups about how they should vote for ‘mashal’ (the UBT faction’s poll symbol) and not the ‘ bow-arrow’ symbol, which has gone to the Eknath Shinde Sena,” said Akshay Raut, who heads a shakha nestled in an idyllic Dahisar ‘gaothan’.

Fourth, a sizeable section of Shiv Sainiks is of the view that the party suffers electorally when in poll alliance. They want Thackeray to go solo for the state assembly and civic polls, sources said.

“In the 1990s the BJP piggybacked on the Shiv Sena to make inroads in Maharashtra. Back then, the seat-sharing formula for the state assembly election was loaded in our favour: 177 (Shiv Sena) and 117 (BJP),” recalled Desai.

However, these are just blurred memories of halcyon days. For now, Thackeray is all set to hit the road on the second leg of his criss cross poll tour. He addressed as many as 13 public meetings across the state early this year. He will concentrate more on Konkan and Marathwada, his party’s romping ground since the 1990s.

Pluses, old and new

There are several pluses on Thackeray’s side. The list of candidates is a judicious mix of veterans (Chandrakant Khaire of Aurangabad, Arvind Sawant, the two-term Mumbai south MP, and Vinayak Raut from Konkan) and first timers (Vaishali Darekar in Thane and Chandrahas Patil, a wrestler from Sangli).

Also, the party has been getting a good response from the Muslim community which is, by a conservative estimate, pegged at 21% of Mumbai’s total population. The community has a remarkable presence in Marathwada, northern and southern Maharashtra, it is said.

“We’ve been invited for ‘iftar’ parties this year — something which was unthinkable during Balasaheb’s era,” remarked a Shiv Sena (UBT) functionary from Nagpada. “Muslims have been coming to us. They promise support to the party as they think Uddhav-ji can take on the NDA,” said Parab.

Moreover, a vibrant, well-knit ‘shakha’ network will stand the Thackeray Sena in good stead, said political analysts. “We aren’t concerned with what happens at the top level. We take care of our wards, bond with people and address their problems. We are the sentinels of the party,” said Dhanashri Kolge, an entrepreneur and member of the Aditya Thackeray-led Yuva Sena’s core committee. Each ‘shakha’ is the party’s nucleus at the ward level with good equations with local ganesha-govinda mandals, women’s self-help groups, senior citizens’ associations, gyms and sports organisations, she added.

“Some of our corporators defected to the Shinde camp as they realised that their funds were drying up following the dissolution of the Mumbai civic body. They left the party with a handful of loyalists. The ‘shakha’ structure remains intact and robust,” said Parab.

Yet, many are worried if the party can withstand another rapid-fire round of defections in the run up to the state assembly and BMC polls should the NDA return to office. “The days ahead will test the party’s grit and tenacity, but we will win. A true Shiv Sainik fights with his back against the wall when provoked,” said Akshay Raut.

“The Shiv Sena (UBT)’S may have survived its worst ever crisis, but its existential dilemma is far from over,” said Oza. “Trapped in its past which is both fascinating and tumultuous, the party, at 57, faces a hazy future, while Thackeray, at 63, is trying hard to tackle the present,” he added.