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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.

Fragile Havens

In the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror strike on April 22, in which 26 people were butchered in cold blood, the Narendra Modi-led BJP government has moved swiftly to tighten its visa policies towards Pakistani nationals. Amid this legitimate security impulse lies an alarming failure: the vulnerable Hindus who fled Pakistan’s religious persecution, hoping for a safe and dignified future in India, now find themselves on the verge of being cast adrift once again.


Fear and anxiety have swept through refugee camps near Delhi’s Majnu Ka Tila and the Signature Bridge, home to over a thousand Pakistani Hindu migrants. With their visas set to expire soon, and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs ordering a broad revocation of Pakistani visas, their existence hangs by a thread. Though the government later clarified that Long-Term Visas (LTVs) would remain valid, uncertainty festers. Many applicants awaiting Indian citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 (CAA) are still trapped in bureaucratic limbo. Their visas require renewal every two years, each cycle exposing them to fresh peril.


The plight of these refugees demands urgent compassion and clarity. These are not opportunists seeking economic advantage. They are families who fled real and brutal persecution, trading their ancestral homes for squalid slums in India’s capital. They endure without electricity, education or medical care. Their hopes for a new life where their children might study, thrive and live without fear are steadily eroding.


The question gnaws at every refugee: will they be allowed to stay, or forced back into a land where their only certain future is persecution?


The Modi government has rightly championed the cause of persecuted minorities from India’s neighbourhood. The passage of the CAA was a recognition of India’s moral responsibility towards Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians who have faced systemic oppression in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.


It is not enough to issue clarifications exempting LTV holders. India must act with decisiveness and heart. First, the government must expedite the processing of citizenship applications under the CAA, particularly for those who have already spent years in India. Bureaucratic inertia cannot be allowed to determine the fates of families whose very survival depends on it. Second, recent arrivals who have fled from Pakistan’s deepening religious intolerance must be treated not as suspicious aliens, but as vulnerable asylum seekers. They deserve at least a temporary sanctuary while their claims are assessed fairly.


India is, and must remain, a natural home for Hindus facing persecution elsewhere. The subcontinent’s bloody partition drew frontiers across communities, but not across civilizational bonds.


Security is a legitimate concern in times of heightened tension. But a blanket tightening of rules without nuance or humanity risks harming the very people India has vowed to protect. Fragile havens must not be shattered by bureaucratic indifference. To send these refugees back would be to condemn them to certain reprisals and, quite possibly, death.

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