The Battle for Balasaheb's Legacy

Eknath Shinde’s greatest political challenge is not within the ruling Mahayuti but in ensuring that Uddhav Thackeray ceases to matter.

Maharashtra has seldom witnessed political upheaval on the scale of the past decade. Since 2014, the state’s alliances have been broken and remade with astonishing frequency and parties that once defined themselves by ideological certainties have embraced improbable partners. Yet three years - 2019, 2022 and 2024 - stand apart. Each reshaped not merely the composition of government but the balance of power within the state’s political establishment. More importantly, each brought Maharashtra closer to answering a question that remains unresolved: who truly inherited the political legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray?

Irreversible Schisms

The first rupture came after the Assembly election of 2019. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the undivided Shiv Sena, partners for nearly three decades, parted ways over the chief ministership. Uddhav Thackeray joined hands with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi, an alliance whose ideological contradictions were outweighed by the immediate arithmetic of power. The unprecedented experiment rewrote Maharashtra’s politics and inaugurated a period of realignment from which the state has yet to emerge.

If 2019 unsettled the old order, 2022 demolished it. Eknath Shinde led one of the most consequential rebellions in the Shiv Sena’s history, taking with him a substantial section of the party’s legislators. The revolt toppled the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government and split the Sena into rival claimants.

The political consequences were even more profound. Shinde became Chief Minister with BJP support, while Devendra Fadnavis - widely expected to reclaim the post - accepted the office of Deputy Chief Minister. The arrangement surprised observers and immediately raised questions about the future balance of power inside the ruling alliance.

Both leaders have consistently projected unity in public. Yet politics seldom eliminates ambition merely because coalition arithmetic demands cooperation. Shinde had ceased to be merely another regional ally of the BJP. By carrying away much of the Shiv Sena's legislative strength and organisational machinery, he emerged as a power centre in his own right. Fadnavis, meanwhile, has remained the BJP’s pre-eminent leader in Maharashtra and the party’s natural claimant to long-term leadership of the state.

Complex Equation

The BJP complicated this equation further in 2023 by inducting the late Ajit Pawar and his faction of the NCP into the ruling coalition. The move widened the alliance’s social and electoral reach, but it also ensured that no single regional partner - not even Shinde - could become indispensable.

The Assembly election of 2024 seemed to vindicate this strategy. The Mahayuti secured a commanding victory. Although the BJP emerged as the largest party, many analysts credited the popularity of the Ladki Bahin Yojana, widely identified with Shinde’s government, with expanding the alliance's support among women voters.

Yet electoral credit and political reward proved to be different things. With the BJP winning the largest number of seats, Fadnavis returned as Chief Minister. For Shinde, who had governed the state for more than two years and campaigned vigorously across Maharashtra, the outcome represented an unmistakable diminution of authority.

Since then, speculation about an undeclared rivalry has persisted. The two leaders continue to present a united front, but political observers have noted episodes suggesting that Shinde remains determined to preserve an independent political identity. His separate meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have repeatedly fuelled such perceptions. Whatever the official explanation, they have reinforced the impression that the BJP’s central leadership continues to regard Shinde as an influential pillar of the National Democratic Alliance, irrespective of who occupies the Chief Minister’s office in Mumbai.

Yet, the more serious challenge to Shinde lies elsewhere. Rumours have surfaced of a possible reconciliation between the BJP and the Thackeray family. None has materialised. Even so, the speculation has served as a reminder of an uncomfortable political reality. As long as Uddhav Thackeray retains organisational strength, electoral relevance and emotional ownership of Balasaheb Thackeray’s legacy, alternative political alignments remain conceivable. For Shinde, that uncertainty itself constitutes a strategic vulnerability.

It explains the significance of what has been described as ‘Operation Tiger’ under which prominent leaders from Shiv Sena (UBT) have reportedly crossed over to Shinde’s camp. Every Member of Parliament, legislator, district functionary or corporator who defects serves a dual purpose. Numerically, Shinde’s organisation grows stronger. Symbolically, his claim to be the authentic inheritor of the Shiv Sena becomes more persuasive.

That argument received a notable endorsement when Amit Shah declared at a public function in Kolhapur that there was only one Shiv Sena, led by Eknath Shinde.

Shinde is fighting two distinct battles simultaneously. One is internal to the Mahayuti, where he must preserve sufficient political weight to negotiate with the BJP on equal terms. The other, and ultimately the more consequential, is against Uddhav Thackeray.

The contest today concerns political inheritance and the right to claim the legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray. Should Shinde succeed in bringing most of the Shiv Sena’s organisational structure under his command before he 2029 Assembly election, he would approach the next round of negotiations from a position of considerably greater strength.

Some political observers have even speculated that, if the BJP were eventually to entrust Fadnavis with a larger national role after 2029, Shinde would naturally emerge as the strongest contender for the chief ministership within the alliance.

Politics rarely unfolds according to long-term blueprints. But the logic underpinning Shinde’s present strategy is unmistakable. For him, Uddhav Thackeray cannot simply be ignored or contained. He must be politically diminished. As long as Uddhav commands loyal legislators, local leaders and committed workers, the Shiv Sena’s inheritance remains disputed. For Shinde, success will ultimately be measured on whether voters have accepted that the Shiv Sena’s future belong to him rather than to Uddhav Thackeray.

(The writer is a political observer. Views personal.)