End of an innings
The Sena leaderturnedCongressman, who was sacked from the party, says Nehruvian socialism has lost its importance in today’s India
For a journalist whose dawn in politics began with the blessings of late Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray and reached its zenith in the Congress, Sanjay Nirupam, who was recently expelled from the Congress, has lost none of his acerbity honed during his first vocation.
Ostracised for “antiparty activities”, Mr. Nirupam relentlessly warned of the dangers in letting his party’s ally, the Uddhav Thackerayled Shiv Sena (UBT), dominate the Congress in Mumbai and Maharashtra.
Lashing out at the Congress’s leadership, Mr. Nirupam observed that just like the Bolsheviks, who had become ideologically bankrupt after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Congress’s Nehruvian socialism ceased to be of import today.
Hailing from Rohtas in the eastern Indian State of Bihar, Mr. Nirupam began his career as a journalist in 1986, and moved to Mumbai in 1988 where he worked with Jansatta, the sister publication of the Indian Express.
An ardent film buff and admirer of iconic Bollywood star Dev Anand, Mr. Nirupam even penned the story for Anand’s Return of Jewel Thief (1996) — the failed sequel to classic Jewel Thief (1967). It was at this point he became friends with Sanjay Raut — now a Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson — who was then cutting his teeth at Loksatta.
After Mr. Raut moved on to Saamana (the Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece), he put a call to his friend Mr. Nirupam, intimating him of the party’s need for a journalist to head its Hindi mouthpiece — Dopahar ka Saamana. The Hindi edition was Bal Thackeray’s brainchild aimed at reaching out to Mumbai’s Hindispeaking populace in the aftermath of the 1992 Bombay riots. In a twist of fate, as their respective political careers progressed, Mr. Raut would later become Mr. Nirupam’s bitter foe.
Mr. Nirupam joined Dopahar ka Saamana as its executive editor in 1993. His career subsequently saw a meteoric rise, with the Shiv Sena supremo sending the scribe as an MP to the Rajya Sabha in 1996. Importantly, Mr. Nirupam became the face of the Sena’s endeavour to reach out to Mumbai’s thriving North Indian voters, after the party shifted from its nativist stance of the late 1960s to a hardline ‘Hindutva’ position.
Slide in fortunes
Mr. Nirupam’s Sena sojourn came to a crashing end after he was asked to step down as Rajya Sabha MP in 2005, a fullyear before his term expired. He quit the Sena and joined the Congress in April 2005, being soon appointed as a general secretary of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee. He won the Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat in 2009, defeating the BJP’s Ram Naik by a little over 6,000 votes.
The Congressman’s political fortunes, however, saw a sharp slide with the BJP’s reemergence at the Centre under Narendra Modi in 2014.
This period was marked by a general decline in the Congress’s fortunes in Maharashtra and Mumbai.
The frenetic political manoeuvring between parties after the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election resulted in the formation of the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government headed by Uddhav Thackeray.
A firm opponent of an alliance with Mr. Thackeray’s Sena right from the start, Mr. Nirupam embarrassed the party’s ally further when he sought an investigation into the Thackeray family’s newlybuilt residential property in Mumbai’s Bandra.
The resentment against the Sena (UBT) reached a crescendo during prepoll seatsharing parleys when Mr. Nirupam strongly objected to Sanjay Raut’s assertion that the Sena (UBT) would contest the same number of seats (23 of a total 48) that it had done in 2019 (when the Sena was not split and in alliance with the BJP).
While Mr. Nirupam protested against the Sena (UBT)’s “excessive demands”, he was even more appalled at the Congress’s seeming inability to contain its MVA ally.
Never the one to mince his words, Mr. Nirupam delivered a Parthian shot before his exit, preempting the Congress high command by submitting his resignation letter even before his official sacking, urging them to save stationery instead!