A Li’l Shindig

He’s incisored right between a giant Modi and a smaller Devendra Fadnavis, with a diminutive Ajit Pawar on the far left, quite the smallest matryoshka doll. So you can’t be too sure that Eknath Shinde likes his awkward placement. But it’s not his relative size in that quartet that matters. The Maharashtra CM probably never imagined he’d live to see a day where his image has more prominence than the two Shiv Sena giants he reveres as his ideological preceptors: Bal

Thackeray and Shinde’s own political mentor and Thane strongman ‘Dharmaveer’

Anand Dighe. And these hoardings adorn bus stops on arterial roads all across Mumbai, the city that Thackeray Sr could play like a Paganini played his violin: at will. For decades since 1989, when their Hindutva partnership began, the Sena had been the undisputed Big Brother to the BJP in these parts. Thackeray passed on in 2012, and

Narendra Modi arrived in 2014— the centre of gravity was bound to shift. The 2022 split in the Sena only put the seal on that. Shinde has all along justified his turn to a satellite existence by claiming to be the rightful inheritor of the Sena legacy. The BJP is equally intent on demolishing Uddhav

Thackeray’s proprietary claim over the Sena. But this piece of visual allegory, confirming who’s the boss in the Mahayuti alliance, squeezes Thackeray Sr into an inconspicuous ring in the upper left hand corner. A picture is often worth a thousand silences.