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By:

Rajendra Joshi

3 December 2024 at 9:20:26 am

Rajesh Kshirsagar walks into a political trap

The Shiv Sena MLA has chosen confrontation over the Shaktipeeth Expressway risking political isolation Kolhapur: Shiv Sena MLA Rajesh Kshirsagar’s aggressive support to the proposed Shaktipeeth Expressway has brought him face-to-face with former MP Raju Shetti. But the political fallout has not stopped there. In quick succession, he has taken on Congress leader Satej Patil, questioned the position of fellow Mahayuti legislator Chandradip Narake and criticised his own party colleague, Public...

Rajesh Kshirsagar walks into a political trap

The Shiv Sena MLA has chosen confrontation over the Shaktipeeth Expressway risking political isolation Kolhapur: Shiv Sena MLA Rajesh Kshirsagar’s aggressive support to the proposed Shaktipeeth Expressway has brought him face-to-face with former MP Raju Shetti. But the political fallout has not stopped there. In quick succession, he has taken on Congress leader Satej Patil, questioned the position of fellow Mahayuti legislator Chandradip Narake and criticised his own party colleague, Public Health Minister and Kolhapur Guardian Minister Prakash Abitkar. That is a lot of political fronts for one MLA to manage simultaneously. The immediate question, therefore, is not whether Kshirsagar has the courage to fight. He clearly does. The more important question is whether he has calculated the political cost of fighting everyone at once. The Shaktipeeth Expressway has become one of the most contentious political issues in Kolhapur district. Raju Shetti has turned the proposed acquisition of agricultural land into a farmers’ rights issue and has built a sustained campaign around it. His politics has always thrived on confrontation. His rise from the sugarcane farmers’ movement to the Assembly and then the Lok Sabha was built on his ability to convert farmers’ grievances into political mobilisation. Kshirsagar has now chosen to meet that politics head-on. His controversial warning against Shetti, in response to the latter’s aggressive rhetoric on land acquisition, transformed a policy disagreement into a personal political duel. Supporters of both sides have since taken the confrontation to the streets. This is precisely where political calculation becomes important. Supporting a flagship project backed by the Chief Minister can certainly send a message to the leadership in Mumbai. Kshirsagar is willing to stand by the government when the going gets difficult. But the same position can create political liabilities at home, particularly when the project affects constituencies where local MLAs are under pressure from farmers. Different Question Kshirsagar’s decision to attack Satej Patil raises a different question. Patil remains one of the most influential political figures in Kolhapur. Suggesting that he may struggle to win the next Assembly election is not routine political criticism. It is an open challenge. That challenge may energise Kshirsagar’s supporters. It may also consolidate his position among those within the ruling establishment who see Patil as a principal political adversary. But there is a danger in confusing political visibility with political strength. Every additional opponent creates another front that has to be managed during an election. And Kshirsagar has already opened several. The most politically revealing part of Kshirsagar’s criticism of Chandradip Narake and Prakash Abitkar. Narake represents a constituency through which the Shaktipeeth project passes. His opposition, therefore, has an obvious electoral logic: he has to respond to the concerns of his voters. Kshirsagar’s criticism of Narake puts him in a difficult position. He is effectively asking another ruling-party MLA to subordinate constituency politics to the government’s larger project. Then came the attack on Abitkar. To publicly accuse the party’s Kolhapur Guardian Minister of failing to strengthen the organisation amounts to washing the party’s dirty linen in public. Ministerial Ambition There is another possible explanation for Kshirsagar’s increasingly combative posture: the unresolved question of ministerial ambition. A three-time MLA would naturally expect that electoral experience and political seniority might eventually translate into a Cabinet berth. Instead, when the opportunity came, Eknath Shinde chose Prakash Abitkar and gave him an important Cabinet portfolio. Kshirsagar was left outside the ministry. His present position on the State Planning Board gives him a role, but it is not the same political currency as a Cabinet berth. It would be simplistic to suggest that every recent statement is merely an expression of that disappointment. But it would be equally naïve to ignore the possibility that political frustration has influenced his increasingly assertive posture. The Shaktipeeth issue may simply have provided the trigger. Kshirsagar should also be looking closely at the arithmetic of Kolhapur North. The constituency has a history of surprising political outcomes. Its old-city peth culture is blunt, politically conscious and capable of producing results that defy conventional calculations. The last Assembly election demonstrated this dramatically. Madhurimaraje Chhatrapati’s withdrawal as the Congress candidate left the Opposition scrambling just weeks before polling. Satej Patil then backed municipal corporator Rajesh Latkar, who entered the contest with barely 15 days to campaign. Yet Latkar secured nearly 81,000 votes. Kshirsagar won by around 23,000 votes, but the number that should concern his camp is not merely his winning margin.

Capital Chaos

The shocking violence that occurred during the protests led by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), which left 118 policemen injured in Delhi, raises an uncomfortable question: why does the national capital repeatedly become the stage for protest movements that cross the line from dissent into disorder? When a demonstration against educational reforms results in scores of injured policemen, the issue becomes a serious question of public order and accountability.


The geography of this violence is hardly accidental. Delhi has long served as the grand amphitheatre for India’s political performative class - the ‘Cadillac left-liberals’ who despise Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with an intensity that outstrips their electoral relevance. In the capital, protests are not merely expressions of grievance but are status symbols. Supported by a sympathising ecosystem of urban intellectuals, activist-lawyers, and media enablers, these movements operate under an implicit guarantee of soft handling. Outrage that would draw harsh crackdowns in any state capital is treated in Delhi as a vibrant exercise in civil society.


By dithering on firm legal action against key conspirators and their shadowy handlers and focusing instead on standard, low-level FIRs against the front-line stone-pelters, the government hands an ideological victory to the agitators. It broadcasts a message of vulnerability.


The troubling question is why protests in Delhi repeatedly escalate into such clashes. The responsibility cannot end with statements of regret after violence has occurred. Those who organise, finance or encourage unlawful actions must face scrutiny under the law. The government’s response matters enormously here. If it appears hesitant to pursue those who may have planned, encouraged or financed unlawful actions, it creates the perception that political pressure can dilute legal consequences and that disorder in the capital can be an effective instrument of mobilisation.


That perception is corrosive. A state that hesitates to enforce the law consistently eventually encourages those willing to test its limits. The police, meanwhile, cannot be treated as expendable symbols of state authority. The 118 personnel injured during the clashes were not faceless instruments of power. They were citizens carrying out one of the most difficult constitutional responsibilities of maintaining order amid political conflict.

 

Assaulting them is an attack on the very institution responsible for protecting democratic freedoms.


India’s democracy is robust enough to accommodate fierce disagreement. But democracy does not mean a permanent licence for street confrontation. Delhi has witnessed too many moments of such anarchist protests under the garb of liberality. The capital of the Indian Republic cannot become the capital of impunity. The rule of law must apply equally to politicians as well as ‘activists’ who break the law in seeking to garner public attention.

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