Real Vs fake: A ‘maha’ battle on the cards

It is going to be a bitter battle in Maharashtra when the State Assembly will be going in for polls just about 30 days from now. The big question is which Shiv Sena will see the sun rise and which Sena will pack up. Maharashtra has never seen so much polarisation.

This election is going to be a real Maha battle of 2024 and could be a litmus test both for the BJP-supported Shiv Sena of Eknath Shinde-NCP (Ajit Pawar group) and Congress-supported Udhav Thackrey’s Shiv Sena. Both the Senas call each other ‘Gadar’ party, and it will be all the way Shiv Sena V/s Shiv Sena.

It is going to be an interesting fight because the symbol of Shiv Sena is with Shinde and Udhav retains the name of ‘original Shiv Sena’ and claims to be the party of ‘Marathi Manush.’ Interestingly, both say they are the real Hindutva party.

But, there is something one needs to know. Shiv Sena, when it was originally formed, was not a Hindutva party. It was named after Maharaj Chatrapati Shivaji and was supposed to be a union of Marathi speaking people. It had an alliance with parties including Congress and Murali Deora of Congress became the mayor of Mumbai with the help of Shiv Sena. The Shiv Sena took on the Hindutva slogan in 1986-87 by election when BJP wanted to defeat Sena. In fact, many times Balasaheb used to say, “I am a Mad Mad Hindu”. When a scribe reacted saying, “So you say you are mad,” Balasaheb retorted saying “Don’t be so smart.”

Udhav alleges that the Shinde led Shiv Sena is 50% owned by Adanis and 50% by BJP and that it is a party of cowards. He takes pains to point out that that the administration under Shinde led Shiv Sena collapsed. It is “Nakli Sarkar and Bhatakti Atma.” The BJP-Sena combine had failed to create jobs, cheated the youth and had compromised with Maha pride and no Marathi Manush trusts them. Shinde led party is ‘B’ team of BJP, fume the Sena leaders. The Shinde faction counters the charges, saying if that was true then why Uddhav lost in Lok Sabha elections. The biggest charge of Shinde group is that the Udhav-led Shiv Sena had given up Hindutva as they went with the so-called secular Congress party. They lost the support of Hindu vote bank and Marathi vote bank, Shinde claims.

Amidst this scenario, the political scenario in Maharashtra is becoming murkier. Another factor that needs to be noted here is that it is just not going to be a fight between the two Senas but there will be six different kinds of battles, and it will be different in each region. Vidarbha for example is where the Sharad Pawar’s NCP is a major force. On the other hand, there are fissures within the bloc INDIA on seat sharing. The Congress wants to play the role of a big brother. It is not willing to accept the seats which UBT wants to give to Congress. Time running out, the differences are yet to be ironed out between the INDIA partners.

BJP-Shiv Sena NCP (Ajit Pawar group) has announced its list of 90 candidates and retained 71 MLAs in the first list. The BJP-RSS combine is way ahead in macro management of polls and are working on micromanagement. The Udhav-led Shiv Sena has to reinvent itself as it is fighting an existential politics. Well, whatever the outcome, it is going to be a real ‘Maha’ battle of 2024.