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By:

Akhilesh Sinha

25 June 2025 at 2:53:54 pm

Congress tries a ‘third’ hand

New Delhi: The BJP latest manoeuvre in elevating Nitin Nabin as the party’s national working president has had consequences in Maharashtra’s two biggest cities - Mumbai and Pune. The result has left the Congress party in a curiously ambivalent mood: quietly pleased by the opportunities created, yet wary of the turbulence ahead. In Maharashtra, the immediate beneficiary of the BJP’s move is Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. The BJP’s organisational signal has strengthened its hand in the forthcoming...

Congress tries a ‘third’ hand

New Delhi: The BJP latest manoeuvre in elevating Nitin Nabin as the party’s national working president has had consequences in Maharashtra’s two biggest cities - Mumbai and Pune. The result has left the Congress party in a curiously ambivalent mood: quietly pleased by the opportunities created, yet wary of the turbulence ahead. In Maharashtra, the immediate beneficiary of the BJP’s move is Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. The BJP’s organisational signal has strengthened its hand in the forthcoming elections to the BMC, Asia’s richest civic body, and in Pune, the state’s second city. For Shinde, whose legitimacy still rests on a contentious split with the party founded by Bal Thackeray, any reinforcement from the BJP’s formidable machine is welcome. For Uddhav Thackeray, who leads the rival Shiv Sena (UBT), the message is ominous. His party, once the natural custodian of Marathi pride in Mumbai, now faces the prospect of being squeezed between a BJP-backed Sena on one side and a revived Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) led by his cousin, Raj Thackeray, on the other. Shotgun Alliance That pressure has forced Thackeray into an awkward embrace with his estranged cousin. A reunion of the Thackeray clans, long rumoured and often aborted, has unsettled Thackeray’s MVA ally - the Congress. Signals from the party’s high command suggest a calculated distancing from Shiv Sena (UBT), particularly in Mumbai, where Congress leaders are exploring arrangements with smaller parties rather than committing to a Thackeray-led front. In Pune, the party’s pragmatism is even more pronounced. Quiet efforts are under way to entice Ajit Pawar’s NCP, currently aligned with the BJP, into a tactical understanding for the civic polls. Control of the municipal corporation, even without ideological harmony, is the immediate prize. For the embattled Congress, the civic polls offer a chance to do two things at once. First, by keeping a degree of separation from the Uddhav–Raj combine, it can strengthen its own organisational sinews, which have atrophied after years of playing junior partner. Secondly, it can allow the BJP–Shinde Sena and the Thackeray cousins to polarise the Marathi vote between them, leaving Congress to position itself as a ‘third pole.’ Such a strategy is particularly tempting in Mumbai. A tie-up with outfits like Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) could help Congress consolidate minority, Dalit and tribal voters, constituencies it believes are more reliably mobilised without the ideological baggage of Thackeray’s Sena (UBT). Severing or loosening ties with Shiv Sena (UBT) would also simplify Congress’s messaging ahead of assembly elections elsewhere. In states such as West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where polls loom next year, the party has historically preferred alliances that allow it to emphasise secular credentials and oppose the BJP without accommodating overtly Hindu nationalist partners. Mixed Signals The Congress’ internal signals, however, are mixed. When talk of a Thackeray reunion resurfaced, Maharashtra Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar publicly welcomed it, arguing that Raj Thackeray’s limited but distinct vote share could help consolidate Marathi sentiment. Mumbai Congress chief Varsha Gaikwad was more circumspect, hinting that alliances with parties prone to street-level militancy deserved scrutiny. Wadettiwar swiftly clarified that decisions would rest with the party’s senior leadership, underscoring the centralised nature of Congress’s calculus. In Pune, meanwhile, senior leaders are reportedly engaged in discreet conversations with Ajit Pawar, whose defection from his uncle Sharad Pawar’s NCP last year still reverberates through state politics. The outline of a broader strategy is becoming visible. Congress appears content to let the BJP and Shinde’s Sena draw on non-Marathi and anti-dynasty voters, the Thackerays appeal to wounded Marathi pride while it quietly rebuilds among minorities and lower-caste groups. Mumbai Approach Mumbai’s demography lends some plausibility to this approach. Alongside its Marathi core, the city hosts millions of migrants from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, a constituency that has increasingly gravitated towards the BJP. Raj Thackeray’s strident rhetoric against North Indians, once electorally potent, now risks narrowing his appeal and complicating Uddhav Thackeray’s efforts to broaden his base. None of this guarantees success for Congress. Playing the ‘third pole’ is a delicate art. Yet, the Congress, struggling for survival, has few illusions about sweeping victories. Its aim, for now, is more modest – it is to survive, to remain relevant, and to exploit the cracks opened by its rivals’ rivalries. In Maharashtra’s civic chessboard, that may be advantage enough.

Automobile industry blamed for stalling ethanol push

THE ETHANOL CONUNDRUM - Part - 3


Ethanol producers raced ahead of targets, but engine upgrades lag

ree

Kolhapur: The current crisis confronting India’s ethanol industry is increasingly being attributed to the automobile sector’s sluggish pace in upgrading vehicle engines. The Centre’s ambitious ethanol blending programme rested on two pillars — ethanol production and vehicle manufacturing. While the ethanol industry surged ahead, meeting targets well before schedule and expanding capacity aggressively, the automobile sector failed to match that momentum. The resulting mismatch has pushed the ethanol ecosystem into serious difficulty.


India’s vehicle population continues to grow rapidly, to the point where even an expansive national highway network appears inadequate. There is little doubt that demand for ethanol-blended fuel will rise further in the coming years. However, parallel reforms in vehicle technology did not keep pace with the rapid scale-up in ethanol production, creating today’s bottleneck.


Linked Technology

The use of ethanol-blended petrol and the need for compatible engine technology are intrinsically linked. Conventional engines have coped reasonably well with petrol blended with up to 20 per cent ethanol. Beyond that threshold, engine modifications become unavoidable. The absence of such upgrades has triggered mixed reactions among consumers, with complaints surfacing about engine-related issues linked to higher ethanol blends.


Against this backdrop, ethanol producers have urged the government to raise the blending level by at least another two percentage points to absorb surplus supply. However, reliable sources indicate that the Centre is reluctant to move further, given the technical concerns associated with existing vehicle engines.


Brazil offers a stark contrast. The country has used ethanol-blended fuel for decades and routinely operates vehicles on blends as high as E80. This has been possible because E80-compatible and flex-fuel engines are widely available. In India, despite being one of the world’s largest automobile markets, manufacturers have been slow to embrace this transition.


While notable progress has been made in two-wheeler manufacturing, the sector continues to flag gaps in supporting infrastructure. In passenger vehicles, Maruti Suzuki has so far introduced the country’s first flex-fuel model, but the overall rollout remains limited. Industry watchers say the Centre will have to push the automobile industry harder — possibly through stricter regulatory timelines — to get it aligned with national biofuel goals.


Extended Delay

The consequences of this delay extend beyond ethanol producers. Pollution reduction efforts remain in limbo, both the sugar and ethanol industries are under strain, public investment risks remaining locked in, and potential savings in foreign exchange from reduced fuel imports are at stake.


In the interim, a possible middle path lies in the adoption of flex-fuel conversion kits. Such kits, already available in global markets, cost around Rs 15,000 on average. Promoting domestic manufacturing of these kits under the ‘Make in India’ programme could help bring costs down. If deployed at scale, they could mitigate engine-related issues associated with higher ethanol blends.


Until the automobile industry scales up production of flex-fuel vehicles, flex-fuel kits could offer a practical stopgap. Making flex-fuel engines mandatory in the future, industry experts argue, may be the only way to permanently resolve the crisis facing India’s ethanol sector.


To address the ethanol surplus, the Centre should consider providing export-linked subsidies that allow Indian ethanol to compete with global prices and reduce excess stocks. At present, maize-based ethanol receives an incentive of Rs 5 per litre. With a modest additional support, exports could become viable.


Beyond this, if India succeeds in scaling up domestic biofuel use while emerging as a major ethanol exporter, it could reap significant gains through carbon credits. This would require the government to establish a dedicated institutional mechanism to monetise such benefits. Dr Desai also underlined the need to strengthen infrastructure support for two-wheeler manufacturers that have made substantial advances in ethanol-compatible engine technology.

-Dr Deepak Desai, Chairman, Ethanol India


(Concludes)

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