IN THE EYE OF A STORM
CM Uddhav Thackeray is under fire as Maharashtra struggles to contain the pandemic and revive industrial growth in the state. The poor handling of the Sushant Singh Rajput case has done him no favours
When he took over as the 19th chief minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray, the wildlife photography enthusiast-turnedpolitician looked like he would bring something fresh to the table. The Shiv Sena chief had formed a coalition government, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA), with two unlikely allies—the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress; he also promised to make the farmers chintamukta (tension-free) and, to demonstrate that intent, announced a farm loan waiver of up to Rs 2 lakh. He was witty and accommodating, and confident of negotiating the political churn that had brought together the Sena and the Congress, two parties with no ideological affinity. The opposition BJP predicted the three-party “autorickshaw government” (ex-chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s words) would soon collapse under the weight of its contradictions, but Thackeray proved them wrong too.
However, 10 months into the job, Thackeray is in the eye of a storm. The pandemic is raging and Maharashtra, embarrassingly, is No. 1 among the affected states with over one million cases on September 14. The state has struggled to get new industrial investments and with the Centre reneging on its GST (Goods and Sales Tax) commitments to states—and offering instead a loan window that most non-BJP states are protesting—it is battling a revenue shortfall of 60 per cent so far in the current fiscal. Also, a perception is gaining ground that the 60-year-old chief minister is yielding to the bureaucracy at a time when the state needs firm political leadership. Thackeray and the Sena have also taken flak over the Mumbai Police’s handling of the Sushant Singh Rajput case, and the way the party joined issue with actor Kangana Ranaut.
Thackeray’s popularity was at a high in the beginning, with people thronging his chambers in the Mantralaya just to meet and greet him. The situation started changing in February. Thackeray’s frequent meetings with Sharad Pawar, his new mentor, gave many the impression that he was too heavily under the influence of the NCP chief. His habit of attending office for only four hours a day also became a source of gossip. In March, the state had its first Covid-19 case and very soon Thackeray started confining himself to his home. A heart patient with nine stents in his chest, he now seems to prefer working from home and chooses video conferences over public meetings. However, in his most recent media video briefing on September 13, Thackeray brushed aside the criticism that he was ‘not available’. Far from being cut off, he says he reviews the situation in all 36 districts of Maharashtra every day. “I am contacting each district of Maharashtra through video conferencing and the work is happening,” he said at a Facebook live event with people on September 13.
PAWAR PLAY
Many of Thackeray’s decisions in the first two months of his tenure had Pawar’s stamp. He put on hold the permissions given by Fadnavis for development works in cities, ordered an
inquiry into the Rs 6,144 crore cost escalation in five irrigation projects and cancelled a guarantee for capital loans worth Rs 135 crore to four cooperative sugar mills controlled by BJP leaders. He also scrapped Fadnavis’s policy of independent directors for APMCs (agriculture produce marketing committees).
While cutting his alliance partners slack to exercise their will in administration, Thackeray has also sought to rein them in on occasion. For example, he stayed the transfer of nine deputy commissioners of police (DCPs) in Mumbai on July 6. He was miffed that neither home minister Anil Deshmukh (NCP) nor Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh had consulted him on the transfers. The transfers were executed five days later, but only after Pawar rushed to Thackeray’s residence to argue the case. Political commentator Hemant Desai says: “It is a non-issue whether he works from home or not. What is important is that he should be seen as running the government.”
The transfers episode is said to have created a rift between Thackeray and Pawar. The NCP chief did not visit Thackeray for two months until September 7 when they met again to discuss the Maratha reservations issue. Meanwhile, in a TV interview, Pawar advised Thackeray to step out of his home and take stock of the pandemic situation in the state. He also expressed displeasure over the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) razing the allegedly unauthorised constructions in Ranaut’s house. Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut had to call on Pawar thrice seeking a patch-up.
A Thackeray confidant says Pawar gets angry whenever the CM refuses to abide by his wishes. “Uddhavji has shown the guts to say ‘no’ to Pawar on certain occasions. His (Pawar’s) outbursts are a result of that frustration,” says the well-wisher. NCP leader Avinash Adik, however, refutes these charges, saying the two have an excellent rapport. “Pawar saheb never breached protocol while seeking an appointment. Whenever he feels he needs to apprise the CM on a matter, he calls on him.”
The two have disagreed on other issues too. Such as when Thackeray went against Pawar’s wishes and refused to withdraw the lockdown completely. He also ensured health secretary Pradeep Vyas took instructions from him, rather than health minister Rajesh Tope of the
WHILE CUTTING HIS ALLIANCE PARTNERS SLACK TO EXERCISE THEIR WILL IN ADMINISTRATION, THACKERAY HAS ALSO SOUGHT TO REIN THEM IN ON OCCASION
NCP. The chief minister also made it a point to appoint his favourite bureaucrats in key positions in the Mantralaya.
For his critics, these outbursts of independence are sporadic and unconvincing; for others, it’s proof of his malleability and an ability to manage the contradictions of a disparate alliance and the oversized egos of some partners in government. Soon after the reconciliation with Pawar over the police transfers, Thackeray is said to have yielded to pressure from Pawar to transfer Nagpur municipal commissioner Tukaram Mundhe (the CM had earlier announced full support to the official after complaints by the BJP).
CONGRESS’S COMPULSIONS
The NCP is not the only tough ally Thackeray has to deal with. The Congress’s decision to join the MVA coalition was purely pragmatic. The party got just 16 per cent of the vote in 2019, its lowest vote share ever, and hopes to recover lost ground with this term in power. “If we can keep the break-even mark of 20 per cent of the vote, we have hope,” says a senior Congress leader, requesting anonymity.
The plan looks dicey as the NCP has been dominating the MVA. The Congress is also sceptical about Thackeray’s capabilities. According to the leader, Thackeray is not a man to multi-task, or handle too many problems at a time. “If you give him a full thali, he will either eat rice or chapati,” he says. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, though, is in regular touch with Thackeray through her political secretary Ahmed Patel. She telephoned him on September 9, advising him to be patient in the fracas with Ranaut.
THE MARATHA STORM
The Supreme Court order on September 9 staying reservation for the state’s dominant
Maratha community has come as a big jolt to the MVA. The BJP government in 2018 had enacted a law giving Socially and Economically Backward Class (SEBC) status to the 35 per cent Marathas. Under the law, the community would be entitled to 12 per cent reservation in educational institutes and 13 per cent in government jobs. But this raised the reservation quota in the state to 66 per cent, 16 per cent above the ceiling fixed by the SC in 1993.
Thackeray is now taking fire as the SC stayed the implementation of the quota unlike the case in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh which also face the same issue. The Maratha organisations have now started agitations alleging betrayal by the government. Rajendra Kondhare, president of the Maratha Mahasangh, says the agitation will go on till the government “keeps its word”. Stoking the fires, BJP leader Vinod Tawde, who headed a subcommittee on Maratha reservation, alleges that the government deliberately failed in the SC as it wanted to discontinue the reservation. On September 16, Thackeray promised the Maratha community relief till the SC delivers a final verdict. “Why agitate when the government is listening to you?” he asked.
It may be listening now, but the fact is Thackeray was caught unawares as he had left the matter to PWD minister Ashok Chavan (of the Congress), who heads the panel on reservation. The chief minister did not oversee how the lawyers were handling the case. “All matters are not legally resolved. One needs to adopt diplomatic ways too,” says a government official.
THE COVID CHALLENGE
With 297,506 active cases and 30,883 deaths till September 17, Maharashtra continues to be the worstaffected state (see The Covid-19 Challenge). The virus has now spread to rural areas with
13 of the state’s 36 districts recording more than 20,000 cases each.
While the government did exemplary work in containing the spread in the slum clusters of Dharavi and Worli, it lowered its guard in other areas with the result that the pandemic spread to Maharashtra’s other big cities, home to 25 per cent of the state’s population. With 80,152 active cases on September 16, Pune is the worstaffected district in India. There have also been complaints of shortages of doctors, health workers, oxygen cylinders, ambulances and medicines outside Mumbai.
Thackeray has not been sitting idle, though: the ‘My Family, My Responsibility’ initiative has set a target of reaching 22.5 million families across the state twice a month to check their health status. Volunteers and NGOs will help health officials in doortodoor screening in the first phase that ends on October 10. But the surge in infections is still a worry, and with the Centre stopping the supply of masks, sanitisers and PPE kits, more problems could be in store for the state.
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THE CORE VOTERS
The Mumbai Police’s shoddy work in the Sushant Singh Rajput case (the actor was found dead in his house on June 14) has embarrassed Thackeray. The Supreme Court, on August 19, handed over the investigation to the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation). The Sena’s brash reaction to Ranaut’s comments on the case and the city—demolishing an ‘unauthorised’ construction at her Bandra officecumresidence— only made a bad situation worse. A Sena source says the CM was furious when social media and certain TV channels linked son Aaditya Thackeray to Sushant’s death. “Who are these journalists? I know who they are working for, I won’t spare them,” he apparently screamed, alarming even the house staff at Matoshree.
While the Ranaut runin might have earned Thackeray brownie points with the Sena’s core voters, it is not among their real concerns. Party supporters living in Mumbai suburbs are more concerned, for example, about the commute to work as local trains are still running only for essential workers. Kalyan resident Vandana Kadam says she spends six hours a day getting to her office in Dadar and back. “I would be
happy if Uddhavji resolves our commuting woes at the earliest. Kangana and Sushant are okay for small talk but they are not real issues,” she says.
POLITICAL STABILITY
State BJP president Chandrakant Patil predicts the Thackeray government will fall early since “there is no coordination” among the MVA partners. There is also speculation that a leader of influence, in both the NCP and Congress, could pull strings, break off a chunk of these parties to merge with the BJP in December, after the assembly election in Bihar. A senior BJP leader, though, says the party will not topple the Thackeray government, as it does not want to run the state while the pandemic is still raging. “We can wait for one more year,” he says.
Political analyst Mahesh Vijapurkar, too, feels Thackeray is safe politically. “The Congress is confused and the NCP has nowhere to go. Both parties are antiBJP and hence a security blanket for Uddhav,” he says.
ECONOMIC CHALLENGES
The state of the state’s $400 billion economy must count among Thackeray’s biggest headaches. Maharashtra currently stands at an unflattering No. 13 in the Centre’s ‘ease of doing business’ rankings for states. India’s biggest automobile hub at Chakan near Pune has been badly affected by the spread of Covid19. Industries minister Subhash Desai says some 60,000 industrial units have been allowed to reopen in an attempt to revive the economy. The industry’s response has been a bit cold, mainly because many of the returning migrant labourers have tested Covid positive.
The government is worried. “We are considering some incentives for industry, and hope that will boost their confidence,” says Desai. Given the unprecedented scale of the challenges presented by the pandemic, many believe the state has done a fair job of handling the economic crisis. “Considering the situation, the Maharashtra government has handled it quite prudently,” says Madan Sabnavis, chief economist with Care Ratings. “They have followed a rigorous path in terms of opening up the economy; it may not be ideal from the point of view of the economy, but the government has struck the right balance.”
A tussle with the Centre over the GST dues is another cause for heartburn. For 202021, Maharashtra was due Rs 22,485 crore in GST compensation, the highest among states. Since the state is not willing to borrow from the RBI as suggested by the Centre, and the latter is unwilling to give funds citing low tax collections, experts say Maharashtra will have no option but to cut down on expenditure, further hurting infrastructure and welfare projects.
In terms of attracting investment, Maharashtra can definitely do better, say experts. “Domestic investors are also looking at other states like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. The government cannot sit back and hope investment will flow in automatically,” says Sabnavis. While it is true that Covid19 has left a devastating trail, governments and their chief executives have to do their best to mitigate the damage. Thackeray, it seems, is up for the challenge. “Recently, I have faced many troubles and these political cyclones will continue in the future. But do not consider my silence as helplessness,” he said. The chief minister has so far been fairly adept in walking the tightrope, but he will need to act quickly and decisively now, while also ensuring the ‘autorickshaw’ doesn’t go off the road. ■