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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.

Trial by fire for Supriya Sule

Updated: Nov 29, 2024

The NCP (SP) working president may get some flak for her party’s poor results but her position is likely to remain unshaken as Sharad Pawar’s heir

Supriya Sule

Mumbai: Two days after the results, Supriya Sule put out a message on her social media accounts accepting the people’s mandate and promising to continue working for the state. It was an uncharacteristically somber response from someone whose lively, people-friendly persona is evident through the photographs and selfies she keeps posting numerous times in a day. That she is shaken and disappointed is evident. But the bigger question for political watchers is what this mandate means for her future as the party’s leader.


While the Lok Sabha elections were the first polls fought with Sule as the working president and Jayant Patil as the Maharashtra chief, her stamp on the party’s choice of candidates was obvious and clear only during the state polls. While party leaders maintain that she did not directly influence decisions on the candidates, a few party office bearers accept that a few candidates such as Fahad Ahmad were her picks. Does that mean she failed to sense the mood of the voters?


Her party is still divided on the issue of leadership. Anish Gawande, national spokesperson of the NCP (SP) states that Sule continues to be “hugely popular among the party cadre”. For those who’ve worked with her, she’s known to be straight-forward, approachable and hard working. She gracefully accepts party workers’ and visitors’ requests for photographs and even posts them on her social media pages. Not one to stick to orchestrated photos, she records candid moments and even gives her followers a peek into her family trips and celebrations. All this gives her a touch of approachability.


Sule is an urban, fluent-in-English leader of a party that’s built its fortunes in rural Maharashtra.


That’s where the mismatch is, say her detractors. A party worker living in the outskirts of Pune says that she lacks the understanding of local issues and intricacies of rural politics and hence the empathy that should show in a political leader’s interactions. The touch with the masses that Ajit Pawar has is something that Sule lacks.


While the party is yet to go into serious introspection mode, there are two lines of thought within the NCP (SP). Some say that Sule will take full control of the party aided by Jayant Patil and Rohit Pawar as the third-generation member of the Pawar family. Sule is already building her own team with the party, a team of workers that will be loyal to her. Then there are others who believe that a rapprochement between NCP and NCP (SP) is the need of the hour, making way for Ajit Pawar to lead the party in Maharashtra. Though this option doesn’t seem plausible for now.


“We live in an age of personality politics. The NCP will have more value when a ‘Pawar’ leads it so Supriya Sule is the party’s best bet for the president’s position,” says a party member who didn’t want to be named. He concedes that while Jayant Patil may be more efficient and experienced, he lacks the charm and pull of a ‘Pawar.’


For now, Sule is firmly in her seat as the NCP (SP)’s working president. Her task is tougher now –to re-think the party’s strategies, change the target areas and build a new leadership while keeping her flock together.


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