Thackeray's Exit Shows His Weakness And BJP's Strength

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has never quite shied away from praising Sharad Pawar in public, often as a mentor, and perhaps more often than he has praised his party seniors like Atal Bihari Vajpayee or L.K. Advani. "I have personal respect for Sharadrao. I was Gujarat Chief Minister. He held my finger and helped me to walk. I feel proud to pronounce this publicly," he said at a function in Baramati last year. At an earlier invitation from Pawar in Maharashtra, Modi had said, "I have seen that Sharadrao finds time for farmers and the agriculture sector despite his hectic political schedule."

Despite pushing the BJP in Maharashtra into a corner with this endorsement of a rival, PM Modi needs to be lauded for his political foresight. Maharashtra is an important state for the Modi government where it assumed power in 2014 after 15 years of being in the opposition.

And who better than the astute duo of Modi and Amit Shah to understand the importance of Sharad Rao to sustain their party's re-emergency and political relevance?
 It came as no surprise to anyone when last week the Modi-led NDA government awarded Sharad Pawar with the Padma Vibhushan, one of the highest civilian honours granted by the country. In good humour, his party members told journalists that this was perhaps Modi's "surgical strike against corruption while the country is being demonetised." Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party or NCP has been in the thick of the massive irrigation scam in Maharashtra, and one of his confidantes and ex minister Chhagan Bhujbal has been jailed on corruption charges.

The announcement by the Modi government of this honour for the NCP supremo could not have been better timed. Within a day, the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray announced that it would fight alone in the election for the very important Mumbai corporation or BMC, one of the richest civic bodies in the world. Thackeray, whose party has been one of the biggest critics of the NDA government despite being its oldest ally, remarked tongue in cheek, "Among all Padma awards, we heard that one award was given as a guru dakshina" (offering to teacher).

His closing argument on the break-up of the alliance with the BJP for the civic polls was important and reflective of the Shiv Sena's predicament "I will not tie up with the BJP in any of the future polls in any city or district council. From this day onward, Sena will tread a new path. For the last 25 years, we rotted in this alliance. If in the past Sena founder Bal Thackeray had not stood behind them (BJP), they would have been destroyed by now,'' Thackeray said.
 The statement is not one of defiance but more of a helpless cry by a party leader whose base has been swiftly eroding in the state despite its occasional anti-Pakistan and anti-minority gimmicks, which include blackening the face of an ex-BJP ideologue Sudheendra Kulkarni, or stopping the performance of Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali. More recently, the Sena President and his cousin Raj Thackeray issued warnings to Karan Johar against releasing Ae Dil Hai Mushkil starring Pakistani actor Fawad Khan.

The Shiv Sena has 14 ministers in the Devendra Fadnavis-led government in Maharashtra. The 63 legislators of the Sena support the single-largest party, the BJP, which has 122 legislators. So if the Sena withdraws support, Chief Minister Fadnavis' government will be in a minority - the halfway mark in the state assembly is 145 seats. But the BJP has not much to worry about. Its carefully cultivated friend and now the Padma Vibhushan recipient will come in handy and the NCP's 41 legislators can bridge the gap. At the centre, the Sena is a junior member in the NDA government and the BJP will suffer no losses if this ally opts out.

Where does this leave Thackeray and his Shiv Sena? Perhaps at its most vulnerable and weak position in the state despite being in power. There are talks that Uddhav has initiated communication with Raj Thackeray over a possible partnership for the BMC polls. The Sena has always been a dominant figure in the BMC. But with its support base decreasing, it is not expected to better its performance compared to the last election. The BJP, on the other hand, has managed to portray Devendra Fadnavis as a youth leader whose image has continued to remain untainted and whose popularity has overpowered that of Thackeray's in Maharashtra.
 The result of the Sena ending its alliance in the municipal election will feed into the BJP narrative that the Sena is playing into the hands of the opposition by weakening its anti-corruption drive in the country, especially after the Sena openly opposed demonetisation.

If Uddhav is banking on Raj Thackeray, he is only consolidating support from a party whose politics have few takers in Maharashtra and whose members have already left the sinking ship. Uddhav's predicament at this point is worse than the Akalis in Punjab, who despite being a badly-hit incumbent, could well look to hook up with the Congress if rendered powerless in the forthcoming election. For the Sena, even if it scores big in the BMC, minus the BJP, it might face a further downfall in the 2019 election and end up being just about a trade union.

But, as they say, in politics, every prediction is only as good as the next prediction. Given the NCP's opportunist behaviour, it won't be a matter of surprise if Sena mouthpiece Saamana quickly springs an editorial lauding Sharad Rao Pawar, but that is a big if. For now the Sena is on a sticky wicket. The BJP can comfortably focus on the elections in the five states in the coming month.

(Rana Ayyub is an award-winning investigative journalist and political writer. She is the author of 'Gujarat Files', a book on the politics of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in Gujarat.)

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