Uddhav Thackeray’s battle against BJP: Is there a method to his madness?

When Bal Thackeray was alive, it was said that his authority always remained intact irrespective of whether Shiv Sena was in power or not. No ruling party in the state could ignore him. In contrast, the Sena and its supremo Uddhav Thackeray are now becoming objects of ridicule in Maharashtra politics.

At the root of the Sena’s woes lies Uddhav Thackeray’s confused state of mind. On one hand he spares no opportunity to attack his alliance partner, BJP, on the other hand the Sena is dependent on the party to run the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation as well as for crumbs of power in Maharashtra.

Many eyebrows were raised last week when Uddhav Thackeray went all the way to a five-star hotel in South Mumbai from his Bandra residence Matoshri to meet West Bengal chief minister Mamata Bannerjee. It was for the first time Thackeray had stepped out of Matoshri to meet any political leader. It has now emerged that he also met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar around the same time.

Though Shiv Sena has not reacted to it, Pawar has confirmed the meeting. While elaborating on the meeting, Pawar said, “During the meeting I got a feeling that Uddhav is not comfortable in his with BJP”.

Speculations were rife that Sena might walk out of the alliance and join hands with NCP to topple the Fadnavis government. But the rumours fizzled out within a couple of days, as Uddhav Thackeray came down heavily on NCP in the editorial in party mouthpiece Saamna on Wednesday.

It is said that Thackeray was upset over the possible inclusion of Narayan Rane in the Cabinet. “The meeting with Pawar was only to gauge possibilities of getting support from NCP in case Sena decided to walk out of the government. But Pawar didn’t give any concrete assurance, instead asked Thackeray to consolidate his MLAs and ministers before taking any decision.

According to veteran journalist and political analyst Ganesh Torsekar, “Uddhav has tremendous hatred for BJP and he is going berserk. His only intention is to cause damage to BJP, even if it means harming the Sena in the process”.

“He should have concentrated on strengthening the party, especially after BJP gave it a tough fight in the Mumbai civic elections. Instead he is using the Saamna editorials to vent his frustration,” Torsekar added.

Torsekar feels that Thackeray met Banerjee and Pawar just to rile the BJP.

“But BJP feel assured that no one will align with Shiv Sena at the national or state level. Its hardcore Hindutva agenda is its main problem,” he pointed out.

Shiv Sena is rapidly losing ground in Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra. This was clear in the recently conducted Nanded Municipal Corporation elections.

“Even though Congress swept the civic body, the BJP gained in terms of vote share. But Shiv Sena was wiped out completely,” Torsekar said.

But the exercise of meeting Banerjee and Pawar proved to be futile. Pawar gave no assurance to Thackeray.

Uddhav’s entire exercise to go out of the way to meet Pawar and Banerjee seems to have turned out to be futile. Sources in NCP said that Pawar has not assured anything to Thackeray.

“We want to concentrate on growing our party. Allying with Sena to topple the state government is not our priority at this moment,” said a senior NCP leader who did not wish to be named.

After the meeting diplomacy failed, Thackeray attacked the NCP over senior party leader Praful Patel’s statement that Pawar can become Prime Minister in 2019. In the editorial of party mouthpiece Saamna, Thackeray insinuated that NCP was going the BJP-RSS way.

“Till now we knew that only RSS and BJP held introspection camps. But now NCP too has joined the league. This might be a hint towards an alliance in future,” he wrote.

The Sena supremo further ridiculed Pawar’s PM dreams by saying, “Praful Patel has claimed that Pawar can be Prime Minister in 2019, but he is forgetting that NCP never had enough numbers in Lok Sabha even to think of Pawar becoming PM. A party which never managed to go beyond 8-10 MPs, is dreaming of grabbing the top job”.

However, he did add that Pawar is an ideal candidate for the PM’s post.

“Though Sharad Pawar is an ideal candidate for the post of PM, his supporters are not ready to understand the number game. Even in case of a coalition government at the Centre in 2019, there are doubts as to how many leaders and parties across the country will support Pawar,” the editorial says.