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By:

Abhijit Mulye

21 August 2024 at 11:29:11 am

Shinde dilutes demand

Likely to be content with Deputy Mayor’s post in Mumbai Mumbai: In a decisive shift that redraws the power dynamics of Maharashtra’s urban politics, the standoff over the prestigious Mumbai Mayor’s post has ended with a strategic compromise. Following days of resort politics and intense backroom negotiations, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has reportedly diluted its demand for the top job in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), settling instead for the Deputy Mayor’s post. This...

Shinde dilutes demand

Likely to be content with Deputy Mayor’s post in Mumbai Mumbai: In a decisive shift that redraws the power dynamics of Maharashtra’s urban politics, the standoff over the prestigious Mumbai Mayor’s post has ended with a strategic compromise. Following days of resort politics and intense backroom negotiations, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has reportedly diluted its demand for the top job in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), settling instead for the Deputy Mayor’s post. This development, confirmed by high-ranking party insiders, follows the realization that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) effectively ceded its claims on the Kalyan-Dombivali Municipal Corporation (KDMC) to protect the alliance, facilitating a “Mumbai for BJP, Kalyan for Shinde” power-sharing formula. The compromise marks a complete role reversal between the BJP and the Shiv Sena. Both the political parties were in alliance with each other for over 25 years before 2017 civic polls. Back then the BJP used to get the post of Deputy Mayor while the Shiv Sena always enjoyed the mayor’s position. In 2017 a surging BJP (82 seats) had paused its aggression to support the undivided Shiv Sena (84 seats), preferring to be out of power in the Corporation to keep the saffron alliance intact. Today, the numbers dictate a different reality. In the recently concluded elections BJP emerged as the single largest party in Mumbai with 89 seats, while the Shinde faction secured 29. Although the Shinde faction acted as the “kingmaker”—pushing the alliance past the majority mark of 114—the sheer numerical gap made their claim to the mayor’s post untenable in the long run. KDMC Factor The catalyst for this truce lies 40 kilometers north of Mumbai in Kalyan-Dombivali, a region considered the impregnable fortress of Eknath Shinde and his son, MP Shrikant Shinde. While the BJP performed exceptionally well in KDMC, winning 50 seats compared to the Shinde faction’s 53, the lotter for the reservation of mayor’s post in KDMC turned the tables decisively in favor of Shiv Sena there. In the lottery, the KDMC mayor’ post went to be reserved for the Scheduled Tribe candidate. The BJP doesn’t have any such candidate among elected corporatros in KDMC. This cleared the way for Shiv Sena. Also, the Shiv Sena tied hands with the MNS in the corporation effectively weakening the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s alliance with them. Party insiders suggest that once it became clear the BJP would not pursue the KDMC Mayor’s chair—effectively acknowledging it as Shinde’s fiefdom—he agreed to scale down his demands in the capital. “We have practically no hope of installing a BJP Mayor in Kalyan-Dombivali without shattering the alliance locally,” a Mumbai BJP secretary admitted and added, “Letting the KDMC become Shinde’s home turf is the price for securing the Mumbai Mayor’s bungalow for a BJP corporator for the first time in history.” The formal elections for the Mayoral posts are scheduled for later this month. While the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA)—led by the Shiv Sena (UBT)—has vowed to field candidates, the arithmetic heavily favors the ruling alliance. For Eknath Shinde, accepting the Deputy Mayor’s post in Mumbai is a tactical retreat. It allows him to consolidate his power in the MMR belt (Thane and Kalyan) while remaining a partner in Mumbai’s governance. For the BJP, this is a crowning moment; after playing second fiddle in the BMC for decades, they are poised to finally install their own “First Citizen” of Mumbai.

Belgaum Betrayed

Few disputes in India simmer with as much historical grievance as the decades-old row between Maharashtra and Karnataka over Belgaum. The latest spark in this fraught battle was a seemingly minor argument between a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus conductor and two students over language that led to violence and snowballed into tit-for-tat vandalism and suspension of bus services between the two states.


At the heart of the dispute lies the question of rightful ownership. Maharashtra’s claim over Belgaum is rooted in a clear historical and linguistic logic. The district was part of the Bombay Presidency before Independence, and a significant Marathi-speaking population has lived there for centuries. When the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 redrew India’s internal borders along linguistic lines, Belgaum was inexplicably handed to Karnataka. This decision, contested from the start, was solidified by the Mahajan Commission in 1967, which awarded Belgaum to Karnataka despite acknowledging that many of its villages had a Marathi-speaking majority. Maharashtra rejected the findings outright.


Karnataka, for its part, has been unyielding. It has doubled down on its claim, bolstering its administrative and political presence in Belgaum by holding winter legislative sessions there and constructing a grand Secretariat modelled on Bengaluru’s Vidhana Soudha. These are unmistakable assertions of territorial dominance. Karnataka has also argued that if the Mahajan Commission’s recommendations are to be ignored, then Maharashtra should be prepared to cede parts of Kolhapur, Sangli and Sholapur where Kannada speakers reside.


The reality on the ground remains clear: Marathi-speaking communities in Belgaum continue to feel alienated. Maharashtra’s demand for a realignment of borders under Article 21(2)(b) of the States Reorganisation Act remains unresolved, despite repeated pleas to the Union government. This paralysis has had predictable consequences. The latest episode serves as a reminder that these tensions can be ignited at any moment.


In Maharashtra, raising the issue has been an easy way for leaders to rally Marathi sentiment. In Karnataka, defending Belgaum is seen as a matter of Kannada pride. The dispute has also found cultural echoes in literary events where Marathi and Kannada writers make rival claims.


Beyond the politics, it is the people of Belgaum who suffer by facing institutional discrimination, language barriers in governance and the ever-present risk of their city becoming a battleground for state-level politics. The economic transformation of Belgaum in recent decades has not erased these deeper anxieties. While urban areas have seen demographic shifts, the surrounding regions remain heavily Marathi-speaking. For Maharashtra, the question is one of unfinished justice. The only resolution that can truly settle the matter is a return to the principle on which state borders were redrawn in the first place: linguistic identity. If that principle is upheld, Belgaum should belong to Maharashtra. Until then, the dispute will continue to fester, a wound neither state can ignore.

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