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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.

Mahayuti versus Jarange

Mahayuti versus Jarange

The political terrain in Marathwada is undergoing a seismic shift ahead of the Assembly polls. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), once the dominant force in the region, has its back to the wall following its catastrophic performance in the recent Lok Sabha election in Marathwada, where the saffron party failed to win even a single seat.


The ruling Mahayuti alliance scored just one of eight Lok Sabha in the region, with CM Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena winning the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar seat even as the BJP scored a naught.The most prominent disruptor here was arguably Manoj Jarange-Patil, the Maratha quota activist who made good his boast of being a ‘political kingmaker.’


Despite his professed disinterest in contesting elections, Jarange-Patil is now set to supplant the established political order by fielding candidates and leveraging his influence. His year-long campaign for granting immediate reservation to Marathas within the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category had directly caused the BJP’s (and the ruling Mahayuti’s) rout in the Lok Sabha election in Marathwada, which saw big leaders like Raosaheb Danve and Pankaja Munde bite the electoral dust.


Jarange-Patil’s continued scrutiny of key BJP figures, especially his sustained verbal assault on Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, has long raised eyebrows about his hidden agenda. But the activist’s Svengali-like hold over the Maratha community, and the subsequent coalescing of an OBC versus Maratha standoff, has made it harder for BJP to walk the tightrope between placating the OBCs and appeasing the Marathas in this region.


While he will not personally contest, Jarange’s strategy involves fielding his own candidates, supporting selected candidates from other parties, and ensure the defeat of rivals. One can guess as to who Jarange’s ‘rivals’ are. Thus far, his agitation has noticeably benefited the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA).


In a region perennially bedevilled by drought and agrarian crises and industrially challenged, emotive issues have always spread like bush-fire – be it Sharad Pawar’s controversial proposal to rename Marathwada University in the 1970s to Bal Thackeray and the undivided Shiv Sena securing a foothold to the rise of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) in the 2000s. Thus, it is no surprise that the latest entrant in Marathwada’s boiling cauldron in Jarange-Patil and his Maratha agitation.


Against this fraught background, the prestige of several BJP and Mahayuti heavyweights are at stake on November 20.


For all its accusations at the Congress for being ‘a party of dynasts’, the BJP has fielded a number of scions from established political families in Marathwada: Shreejaya Chavan, daughter of former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan from the Chavan pocket borough of Bhokar in Nanded district. Chavan, who defected to the BJP from the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha, was thwarted by Maratha community activists while campaigning for the BJP candidate in the general election.


The party has gone with incumbent MLA Sambhaji Patil Nilangekar, grandson of late Congress CM Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar, in Nilanga while Dhanajay Munde, an important Vanjari OBC face and Ajit Pawar’s confidant in the NCP, will be holding the Munde family bastion in Parli.


The BJP has renominated Santosh Danve, the two-term MLA from Jalna’s Bhokardhan, and son of Raosaheb Danve. It will be interesting to watch if the son will be successful in halting the Jarange juggernaut – something which the father failed to do.

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