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.

The Barons of Solapur

When the Mohite-Patil father-son duo, Vijaysinh and Ranjitsinh and quit the BJP to return to the NCP (SP) this year, it worried the saffron party. A similar concern was felt in the undivided NCP circles when the powerful duo had left the party for a stint in the BJP in 2019. Such is the influence of the Mohite-Patil family—they control land swathes of land and runs factories and a large educational empire in Akluj.


Switching parties isn’t new for members of the family have moved across various major parties in Maharashtra. If Vijaysinh and his son Ranjitsinh have swiftly changed loyalties from the NCP to the BJP and back, his nephew Dhavalsinh was a former Shiv Sena member who moved to the Congress.


Brothers Pratapsinh and Vijaysinh entered politics in the 1980s albeit in different parties. Vijaysinh began his career as the sarpanch of Akluj and then represented Malshiras in the state assembly between 1980 and 2009. In 2003, he was sworn in as the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra and has served as a cabinet minister for public works, tourism and rural development for several years. During his time in the assembly, Vijaysinh carried ahead his father’s legacy and established sugar factories, dairies, poultry farms, schools colleges, nursing and engineering colleges and poultry farms, bringing economic development and employment to the area. Known to be very close to Sharad Pawar, Vijaysinh won the Lok Sabha elections from Madha near Solapur in 2009. His son Ranjitsinh is a former member of the legislative council who followed his father to the BJP but returned to the NCP (SP).


Under his brother’s guidance, Pratapsinh took his first steps in politics as a member of the Youth Congress in 1985 but was nominated to the Vidhan Parishad in 1997 as a BJP member with help from Gopinath Munde. He was sworn in as the Minister for Cooperation in the Shiv Sena-led government in the late 1990s and then subsequently was elected to the 13th Lok Sabha.


Vijaysinh’s nephew Dhairyasheel quit the BJP on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections to join NCP (SP) when the BJP denied him a ticket. He was warmly welcomed into the party and although he had never contested the assembly or parliamentary elections earlier, he won by a good margin. Another nephew who is Viyasinh’s political rival for supremacy in the area is Dhavalsinh, who has been with the Shiv Sena and then moved to the Congress in 2021. To counter his cousin who was contesting from Madha, he lent support to the BJP candidate.

Comments

bottom of page