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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.

Family Farce

Once again, Bihar’s most storied political family has traded governance for melodrama. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) founded by Lalu Prasad Yadav ostensibly to fight for social justice, has become less a political outfit and more a family-run reality show. The latest episode stars Lalu’s mercurial elder son, Tej Pratap Yadav, who was dramatically expelled by his father from both party and family for the grievous crime of publicly declaring love with another woman.


“Disregard for moral values weakens our struggle for social justice,” Lalu posted on X (formerly Twitter) after expelling his wayward son. That Lalu Prasad, convicted fodder scamster and longtime purveyor of Bihar’s worst excesses, should lecture anyone on moral values is a bit like Oscar Wilde teaching temperance or Donald Trump conducting a seminar on marital fidelity.


Tej Pratap, never one to be tethered by logic or discretion (he once compared himself to Krishna and his brother Tejashwi to Arjuna), claimed his account was hacked. One is left wondering if this was a personal crisis or an audition for the next Ekta Kapoor serial. His girlfriend apparently materialised from twelve years of secrecy, just in time to detonate his father’s electoral prospects as Bihar heads into a keenly-contested poll.


For seasoned watchers of Indian dynasties, this is not a fall from grace but gravitational inevitability. The Nehru-Gandhi family do palace intrigue with a veneer of Nehruvian gravitas. The Yadavs of Bihar offer something earthier: a blend of Lear, Bal Thackeray and the Real Housewives of Pataliputra. Rabri Devi, the former chief minister and mother of the errant Tej, appears resigned. Like Goneril and Regan in reverse, she watches as her family devours itself.


Meanwhile, Tejashwi Yadav, the anointed heir and Lalu’s most plausible political investment, has played the dutiful brother while keeping an arm’s length from the wreckage. It appears Tej Pratap’s recent attempt to float a parallel ideological group called the ‘Dharmanirpeksha Sevak Sangh’ was the final straw. Not content with flouting marital vows, he was now flirting with heresy. Worse, his theatrics risked diverting attention from the RJD’s one great asset: the illusion of unity.


The irony is that the Yadav family has become what they once claimed to fight - dynastic, unaccountable, mired in corruption and farcically out of touch. The ruling BJP and JD(U) must be enjoying the spectacle with popcorn in hand.


This saga exposes the deep rot within the RJD. Lalu’s brothers-in-law, Sadhu Yadav and Subhash Yadav, have defected. Rabri is little more than a shadow. Tejashwi, while competent, is weighed down by the baggage of family loyalty.


One cannot build social justice on a foundation of family theatrics and moral hypocrisy. As always with the Yadavs, the line between satire and reportage is perilously thin. As the state gears up for assembly elections, Lalu, who once rode to power promising social justice, feels the need to clarify his family’s moral compass. But this time, he may find the voters simply bored.

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