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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.

Caste Calculus

The Narendra Modi-led BJP government, long resistant to the idea, has now embraced a caste census which is to be the first such exercise since 1931. It marks a volte face cloaked in the language of social justice but reeking of political expediency. The BJP has hailed the decision as ‘historic’ and a victory for the underprivileged. In reality, it is a belated nod to the growing clamour for caste data and a calculated bid to rescue the BJP’s slipping grip on the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).


Caste, that most enduring of India’s social hierarchies, has always lurked just beneath the surface of its democracy. While Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) have been officially counted since independence, the vast OBC population central to Indian politics has remained statistically invisible. During its long tenure, the Congress either dithered or ducked the question. A brief detour during the UPA years in the form of the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) in 2011 gathered reams of raw data, only for it to be buried under bureaucratic obfuscation and never released. The Modi government, which had firmly declared in 2021 that it would not conduct caste-wise enumeration beyond SCs and STs, has now reversed course. Far from being a visionary step, this is reactive policymaking designed to wrest back control over a discourse the party had long opposed.


What changed? Politics, of course. The 2024 general election, in which the Congress clawed back relevance and the BJP lost its solo majority, rattled the saffron camp. The call for a caste census had grown louder, especially from regional parties with deep OBC roots including Bihar’s Janata Dal (United), Tamil Nadu’s DMK and Uttar Pradesh’s Samajwadi Party. Even Rahul Gandhi, never previously associated with the cause, opportunistically found a newfound commitment to the idea, repeatedly hammering the point that OBCs remain underrepresented in key positions.  


The implications are profound, and not necessarily in a good way. The release of caste data is almost certain to intensify demands for higher quotas in jobs and education. Already, several state governments have begun introducing ‘quota within quota’ schemes for the most backward among OBCs. A nationwide caste census will add fuel to this fire, with sub-groups scrambling for statistical legitimacy and political leverage. It will trigger a fresh round of social engineering in a country already teetering under the weight of identity politics.


The census influences the delimitation of constituencies, which will resume after the next census is completed, currently frozen since 1971. Caste numbers will inevitably be weaponised by political parties seeking to redraw boundaries in their favour. The reservation for women in legislatures also hinges on the completion of the census and delimitation.


That India must reckon with caste is undeniable. But the way it has been done raises more questions than it answers. A country that aspires to move beyond caste must first understand it. But weaponizing that understanding for political survival may deepen, not heal, the fractures.

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