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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.

Schisms and Appeasement in Western Vidarbha

As the Assembly polls loom, Amravati district in Western Vidarbha is turning into a microcosm for coalition schisms as well as appeasement of established players. A striking instance is the Daryapur Assembly segment where the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has announced Abhijit Adsul as the Mahayuti’s candidate. This decision has ignited tensions with incumbent MLA Ravi Rana, an independent supporting the BJP who has asserted that Adsul is unwelcome not just in Daryapur but throughout the district. The situation has posed problems for the Mahayuti in western Vidarbha besides triggering old tensions between the Ranas and the Adsul family.


Ahead of the Lok Sabha this year, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) decision to nominate independent MP Navneet Rana for the Amravati Lok Sabha seat had sparked significant dissent within the ruling Mahayuti coalition, with Abhijit’s father - former Lok Sabha MP Anandrao Adsul, a prominent figure in the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena - calling his ally, the BJP’s choice of Navneet Rana as “political suicide.” Despite indicating that Abhijit would contest against Navneet Rana as an independent in the Lok Sabha, the coalition schism was averted.


Now, with the Shiv Sena intent on placating the Adsul family comeback, the dynamics are fraught again. Ravi Rana, the MLA from Badnera, remains at daggers drawn with the Adsul clan, alleging that Adsul had engaged in a smear campaign against his wife, Navneet Rana, during the Lok Sabha election.


To make matters worse, Ravi Rana has enlisted former BJP Ramesh Bundile into his Yuva Swabhiman Party, aiming to consolidate support and mount a formidable challenge against Adsul in Daryapur.


In the 2014 assembly elections, Bundile had emerged victorious in Daryapur by a substantial margin of 19,582 votes, trouncing Abhijit Adsul, then a sitting Shiv Sena MLA.


Meanwhile, another bitter foe of the Ranas - Bacchu Kadu, leader of the Prahar Jan Shakti party, has asserted that Maharashtra favoured the ‘third front’ of the Parivartan Mahashakti, led by Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati of Maharashtra Swarajya Paksha, himself and Raju Shetti of the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana.


Kadu, the incumbent MLA from Achalpur, was once a Mahayuti ally who was broken away from the ruling coalition. The BJP has fielded Pravin Tayade to supplant the formidable Kadu, a four-term consecutive legislator.


Meanwhile, the opposition Congress– the most prominent of the three Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) partners in this belt - is turning to its seasoned veterans in a bid to reclaim its strongholds in western Vidarbha. In Amravati, the party has nominated former women and child development minister Yashomati Thakur from Teosa, former minister Sunil Desmukh, former MLA Virendra Jagtap from Dhamangaon Railway, and Aniruddha Deshmukh, the Congress district president from Achalpur.


All four candidates are set to face their traditional opponents in the upcoming elections. Notably, aside from Thakur, the other three candidates suffered defeats in the 2019 assembly elections. Jagtap, making his seventh bid for election, is joined by Thakur in her fifth attempt and Bablu Deshmukh, who is vying for the seat for the third time. Deshmukh’s return marks his first candidacy after a 15-year hiatus; he previously ran as a BJP candidate in 2019, losing to Congress’s Sulbha Khodke, before rejoining Congress three years ago.

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