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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.

Murderous Matrimony

Marriage, that venerable institution of love and duty, is increasingly being transformed into a theatre of crime. The recent spate of cold-blooded murders in India, where wives have conspired to kill their husbands, exposes a sinister breakdown of moral compunction. The chilling tales from Uttar Pradesh, Jaipur and Mumbai are grim indicators of a society where marriage is no longer a sacred bond but a contractual inconvenience, to be annulled not by courts but by murder.


Consider the case of Pragati Yadav from Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri district. Forced into marriage by her family, she sought to undo the arrangement not through divorce but through killing. Within weeks of her wedding, she plotted with her lover and paid a contract killer to eliminate her husband, lured to his death under false pretenses. What is most disturbing is not just the premeditated nature of the murder but the apparent lack of remorse. The notion that marriage can be undone with a gunshot speaks volumes about the erosion of both personal responsibility and the sanctity of the institution itself.


Elsewhere in Uttar Pradesh, in the city of Meerut, another wife, Muskan Rastogi, concocted an even more macabre scheme to get rid of her husband. Preying on her lover’s superstitions, she impersonated his deceased mother on social media to manipulate him into believing that her husband’s death was a divine decree. This bizarre and convoluted ploy culminated in the husband’s brutal murder and dismemberment. Not only did the couple murder him in cold blood, but they also cemented his remains into a drum before setting off on a vacation to Himachal Pradesh, as if the crime had been no more than a bureaucratic errand.


Similar horrors have played out in Jaipur and Mumbai. In Rajasthan’s capital, a wife, caught in the glare of CCTV cameras, was seen riding pillion on a motorbike, carrying the lifeless body of her husband wrapped in white fabric. She and her lover had bludgeoned him to death, loaded his corpse onto the bike, and set it on fire by the roadside. In Mumbai’s Goregaon, another woman facilitated the strangulation of her husband in his sleep, plotting with her lover and his accomplices.


The question is why marry at all if one has no intention of honoring the commitment? Arranged marriages in India are deeply ingrained, often prioritizing familial expectations over individual preferences. Yet, if a marriage is so unbearable, the options of separation or divorce exist. In many cases, these murders are not just crimes of passion but calculated acts of financial and personal gain. The hope of inheriting wealth or eliminating an obstacle to a clandestine affair appears to be an overriding motivation. The commodification of human life has reached a point where a spouse can be erased from existence for a modest sum.


While the legal system must ensure swift and exemplary punishment, there is a need for a cultural reckoning. If this bleak trend continues, the country risks normalizing a dystopian vision of marriage, where vows are taken in public but rescinded in private with a hired assassin’s bullet or a lover’s noose.

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