The coming together of the Thackeray cousins – Raj Thackeray, chief of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray – on 5 July, two decades after they had fallen out, could not have happened at a more opportune time. The BJP-Shiv Sena government had to eat dust over its bid to include Hindi as a third language in the school curriculum. It had to abandon the scheme altogether. It is not only on the backfoot but has given the MNS and Shiv Sena (UBT) a golden opportunity to bury their differences and close ranks to redraw the contours of Maharashtra politics. Maratha pride is a potent political weapon that the two cousins have been handed over afresh following what is widely perceived as the imposition of Hindi in Maharashtra after the southern states, especially Tamil Nadu, fumed recently over a similar move on it but in a different form, by the Centre. The rollback on the Hindi imposition by the BJP-led Mahayuti government has brought Raj and Uddhav together when both are facing an existential crisis following the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA) debacle in the Assembly elections last year. The MNS and Shiv Sena (UBT) seem to have the right issue and weapon to go after the ruling dispensation capitalising on the three-language formula in the school curriculum. The government’s knee-jerk reaction and subsequent climbdown is being seen as an admission of a failed attempt to use Maharashtra to test the BJP-led NDA government’s policy of promoting and imposing Hindi on non-Hindi states. The decision to scrap the government order on the three-language formula by the government of Maharashtra is being seen as an outcome of fear of antagonising the Marathi population.
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The most immediate and direct impact of the cousins’ closeness appears to be for the Eknath Shinde camp as it has the potential to turn the Deputy CM’s claim to the legacy of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray hollow and challenges his standing among core Marathi voters. This is alarming for the ruling alliance in the coming municipal elections. With Bal Thackeray’s son and nephew cementing their ties, Shinde runs the risk of being branded as an outsider and a traitor (gaddar). He is likely to face a major challenge on his turf — the urban pockets of Maharashtra, especially across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). He is likely to find a united Marathi regionalist platform propped by the two cousins too tough to handle. Though the Thackeray cousins are yet to formally announce a united front, speculations about such an alliance getting momentum just ahead of the civic body polls, including in the high-stakes BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), are apparently worrying Shinde. Poor showing could lead to waning of his influence in the state and the government he is part of.
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The BJP of course remains the most dominant political party in the state at the moment having won 132 of the state’s 288 seats in the Assembly elections last year. It has a 26.77 per cent vote share, more than double that of the second-placed Congress, which has a vote share of 12.42 per cent. However, if the Thackeray cousins do succeed in forming an alliance, which appears likely, they would pose a serious challenge to this dominance of the BJP by consolidating the Marathi voter base. The coming civic body polls will be a litmus test for both the BJP and the two cousins. Even a slight shift of voters away from the BJP in cities such as Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Nashik could seriously affect the party, which has for long tried to wrest the BMC from the Shiv Sena.
A poor showing in the civic polls could become really problematic for the BJP-led state government in the long run. The Thackerays have synchronised it well to come together as they have enough time to consolidate their base with the Assembly elections being far away. Their plan seems to be to first test the waters in the civic body polls and then build on the gains they may achieve. The Congress may find it difficult to reconcile itself with Raj Thackeray’s strident anti-minority pitch, but everything depends on the acceptability of the show of unity between the MNS and Shiv Sena (UBT).
