More challenges await CM and Sena president Uddhav Thackeray

Uddhav Thackeray's biggest challenge will be working on the strong bonding between the Sena, NCP and Congress - the unity alone can make the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) fitter. Pic/Datta Kumbhar

Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray's biggest achievement in the first year in the chief minister's office, was to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at bay, while finding a safer passage to run the three-party government through the politically hostile and economically worrisome situation that continues to be compounded by the novel Coronavirus pandemic. In the times to come, Thackeray's biggest challenge will be working on the strong bonding between the Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress - the unity alone can make the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) fitter and help it survive the onslaught of unrelenting BJP. At the first instance last November, the MVA promised to be a harbinger of hope for the anti-BJP bandwagon across the country. A year after Uddhav Thackeray's coronation as the chief of an ideologically different alliance, the Bihar voters created a situation that the anti-BJP hopefuls expected to be used to implement the Maharashtra pattern there, but the thought didn't materialise because the BJP had taken due precautions and worked out a preventive plan that some people say would go kaput in the future once Nitish Kumar fully realises the need of severing the ties with the BJP, the way the Sena did last year by breaking a pre-poll alliance.

While the BJP doubled its strength in finishing a close second to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the Bihar assembly and installed Nitish despite him having fewer seats, it also won most of the by-polls up north and down south making it the first preference of the voters. The BJP has already toppled the Congress in Madhya Pradesh and failed despite trying its best in Rajasthan. After Bihar it has focused its energies on West Bengal. Bigger or smaller elections, the BJP doesn't shy from using all the might of national leaders for campaigning. The on-going Greater Hyderabad Municipal polls stand testimony to the BJP's vision that has also brought the 2022 Mumbai municipal elections under its radar before any other party could take a wake-up call.

Also read: 'My Hindutva Does Not Allow Bad Conduct', Says Uddhav Thackeray

But all won and done, being out of power in Maharashtra remains the BJP's Achilles heel, a weakness despite overall strength that must be corrected, the method notwithstanding. And here comes the real challenge for Thackeray and his alliance fellows Sharad Pawar and the Congress high command. The statements issued from the CM and the BJP's Devendra Fadnavis indicate that the feud has entered the next stage, a much intensified and uglier one than before. However, one can't say very firmly that it could be a decisive phase, but can't ignore the BJP which has brought the idea of imposing president's rule back in circulation against the backdrop of the anti-MVA observations made in the court judgments related to two pro-BJP media and entertainment celebrities. However, despite saying so much about Prez Rule, the BJP says it wouldn't make a demand for its imposition. Maybe Malabar Hill's Raj Bhavan is expected to recommend a resolution in this regard, sooner or later, to the Centre.

Why is the BJP camp talking about President's rule? Is it the only way to rein in the MVA? Isn't the BJP sure of what it said earlier, that the internal contradiction would cause the MVA's meltdown? If so, then, the MVA should pat its back for sticking together so far, and also realise that it should continue to glue the 'unnatural bond' for the period that gives them an opportunity to work for the people, and not just blame the undoing on the BJP-led Centre. Obviously, the MVA's (also the CM's) workload includes a very important task of preventing a constitutional crisis that can prompt the BJP to impose President's rule. The BJP won't break the warfare continuity.

In the war the BJP and Sena are waging, Thackeray has a lot at stake, including his heir apparent Aaditya Thackeray, who spearheads important departments and the party's affairs that can place him in the league of young futuristic leadership. Besides fighting the BJP, the Sena has to race against the second single largest and dominating ruling partner NCP, which is turning out to be the biggest beneficiary of the MVA dispensation. The benefit NCP derives would be directly proportionate to the time it spends in the tripartite arrangement. Once the biggest party and MVA's smaller partner, the Congress may be struggling for survival but it can prick the bubble if pushed to the brink. There have been instances of the MVA partners running into each other in the first year, but that didn't qualify for the breakdown. Now there is a talk of the MVA taking on the BJP in the 2022 mini assembly event - the elections to a dozen municipal corporations including Mumbai's financially behemoth body that the Sena has been controlling for more than two decades. The Sena has won most of its Mumbai civic polls while sitting in the assembly's opposition. In 2017, the Sena and BJP went separate ways despite being together in the state government. The Sena emerged the first, followed closely by the BJP, which later boasted about conceding the power to the partner despite being in a position to poach members from other parties. As the future holds answers to our curiosity about the MVA's longevity, the politics in Maharashtra promises to be as thrilling.

Also read: MVA Government Can't Be Intimidated By ED, CBI Probes: Uddhav Thackeray

Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore

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