top of page

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.

Sanctified Shame

For centuries, Tuljapur in Maharashtra’s Dharashiv district has been a sanctum of the sacred. Today, the temple town reels from a drug scandal that desecrates both faith and legacy. Venerated as the abode of Goddess Tulaja Bhavani, the deity once believed to have armed Shivaji Maharaj with a sword to build a kingdom, Tuljapur’s sanctity has been pierced by a sordid scandal involving the synthetic drug mephedrone (dubbed ‘meow meow’) and the alleged complicity of some of the temple’s own priests.


In February, Dharashiv police intercepted a consignment of mephedrone worth Rs. 2.5 lakh along the Solapur-Tuljapur road. The drugs were reportedly headed to Tuljapur from Mumbai. The investigation disturbingly revealed that of the 35 named as accused (of whom 14 have been arrested), at least 11 were priests.


It is a development as spiritually corrosive as it is criminal. That men tasked with guiding the faithful and performing rituals in one of Maharashtra’s holiest shrines may have conspired to pollute it with narcotics is not merely a legal scandal but a moral betrayal.


Cautious local police authorities have stopped short of confirming priestly involvement pending the filing of a chargesheet. Yet the president of the Palikar Pujari Mandal has acknowledged that the names of 11 priests have surfaced, though he hastens to add that most of them rarely appear at the temple.


Drug abuse is scarcely news, nor is the infiltration of narcotics networks into unlikely spheres. But the prospect of a narcotics ring extending its tentacles into a historic temple town, and possibly into the priesthood itself, feels like a desecration layered upon desecration.


It blurs the line between the sacred and the profane in ways that damage public trust in both religious institutions and the rule of law.


The authorities want to tread carefully, with the refrain from both the police and the Mandal president being that to tarnish all priests with the same brush would be both unjust and inflammatory. But to tiptoe around proven complicity would be worse.


The Mandal president has promised that any priest found guilty will be banned from religious duties, which is merely a minimal first step. What must follow is a full-throated, transparent investigation that spares no one and shields no sanctified robe.


For Tuljapur, the stakes are existential. This is not merely about law enforcement. It is about cleansing the very altar of its reputation. The goddess, an emblem of strength and purity, draws lakhs of devotees, especially during Navratri. The temple of Tulaja Bhavani has long stood as a bulwark of Maratha identity and spiritual resilience. It must not now become a byword for moral decay and criminal complicity.


The goddess Bhavani is said to have gifted Shivaji not just a sword, but legitimacy. The sword has long since rusted into legend, but the legitimacy of Tuljapur’s temple must be reforged, and this time not through myth or war but through justice and reform.

Comments

bottom of page