FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
Shinde-shahi' not easy! Although Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde has conquered the Chief Minister seat with the backing of BJP, his future path is not at all going to be a cakewalk. Prior to Maharashtra State polls, BJP's agenda was to gain power on its own and that has not stayed a secret. After two-and-a-half years Maharashtra will go through Assembly polls again, so BJP will ensure that they have enough numbers to acquire power. Their political strategy will lean towards decreasing Shiv Sena's as well as other parties' MLAs. Hence, Eknath Shinde will have two tough nuts to crack; a) To keep up with BJP's ultra-ambitious plans and b) to maintain the existence of Shiv Sena since he has claimed to be still a part of the Bal Thackeray-founded party. Otherwise, he will have to merge his group into a like-minded party such as MNS, which will prove to be a tall order. After winning Lok Sabha polls in 2014, BJP's slogan was "100%", and had even prepared themselves to contest elections on their own. Uddhav Thackeray and Mamata Banerjee were the only two who could see through that slogan clearly, hence they were able to prepare themselves to save their parties. After the Modi government was formed at Centre in 2014, BJP had exported candidates from Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena by diplomacy, rewards, treachery and every other way there was available during the 2014 Maharashtra elections. Based on that alone BJP did not give any importance to Shiv Sena during allotment of candidates which eventually led to both parties going their own separate ways. At that time, Uddhav Thackeray had a made a statement saying Shiv Sena contracted a rot during their 25-year coalition with the saffron party. Thackeray didn't mince his words nor did he lack in his actual efforts as Shiv Sena's numbers in the House went from 48 to 63. BJP's high ride stood stuck at 122, while the figure required to attain majority was 145. The NCP declared their support for the Fadnavis-led party and at last the government was formed. Later on, Shiv Sena joined the 'party'. However, the BJP, when it came to distribution of ministerial posts, they offered Shiv Sena on Two-for-One basis. In the beginning of their partnership, Sena was the elder brother who gradually grew younger as years passed by. Shiv Sena was intending to contest 2019 polls on their own, until the then national president of BJP Amit Shah struck at Matoshree and promised to offer 50% share each if the coalition between them comes to power. If one is to believe that post of Chief Minister was not divided equally into two-and-a-half-years each that can be considered as a sign of political immaturity: the very immaturity that further formed Maha Vikas Aghadi between Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP. The rest is history.
The time has come to pay political price of turning elder brother into younger one. When Thackeray claimed that Shah had given him his word, Fadnavis was not ready to believe. If Shiv Sena had been given the Chief Minister's post of their decided share, today Fadnavis would have been sitting on that chair, which, as we all know, did not happen. Shiv Sena acquired the CM's chair for last two-and-half-years and now, Shiv Sena's own Eknath Shinde will carry it forward for the same amount of time. It's no more a secret that Fadnavis' desire was to be the CM. Hence, when Shinde's name was announced for the post of Chief Minister he said that he would stay out of the government. However, they had to settle for the post of deputy as per order from Delhi. Shinde also must think about the fact that Fadnavis executed his political strategies well enough to bring BJP in Maharashtra, so his post of CM is not entirely safe. In fact, he should think why Fadnavis is made deputy chief minister otherwise he will be victim to his own political immaturity.
