Mumbai: In an interview with his party’s mouthpiece Saamana ahead of the Lok Sabha elections this year, Uddhav Thackeray had said he didn’t accept the Election Commission’s verdict recognising the Eknath Shinde-led party as the real Shiv Sena, something he has often repeated since then.
Speaking to Samaana, he had given an “open challenge” to Shinde. “We will give a date, we will call all the people of Maharashtra there….In front of everyone, they should state who the party belongs to. Whatever the decision is, I’m willing to accept it.”
On Saturday, the decision made by Maharashtra’s voters was announced. In the first assembly election to be held since the Shiv Sena split in 2022, their verdict was overwhelmingly in favour of Shinde, who won 57 seats in the 288-member House, surpassing the 2019 tally of the undivided Shiv Sena at 56.
In comparison, the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), or Shiv Sena (UBT), got just 20 MLAs elected.
Thackeray, however, showed refusal to accept the mandate as the verdict in the public court.
Speaking to reporters at his residence in Mumbai, Matoshree , he said, “After looking at inflation, agrarian distress, the anger of women towards the establishment, we did not expect this verdict. There were big crowds at our rallies, too. On the other hand, we were seeing empty chairs at Modi and Shah’s rallies. Is it because people had already decided to vote for them (the Mahayuti) and so saw no reason to attend the rallies? It is a point to be studied.”
The Shinde-led Shiv Sena, which has been claiming to be the real legatee of party founder Bal Thackeray’s ideology, was vindicated and has emerged stronger than it was when it started off. In 2022, when the party split, Shinde had walked out with a total of 40 MLAs, including himself, claiming to be the real Shiv Sena. Saturday’s results comfortably exceed that number.
On the other hand, the Shiv Sena (UBT), also claiming to be the Bal Thackeray’s real legatee, is now facing an existential crisis, having recorded the poorest performance of the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra since the party got the EC’s recognition in 1989.
The Shiv Sena split in 2022 when Shinde walked out of the Thackeray-led MVA government, toppling it, with a majority of MLAs. He then joined hands with the BJP to form a government in the state with himself as chief minister.
Subsequently, the ECI and Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar gave the Shinde-led party the tag of the “real Shiv Sena”, along with the undivided Shiv Sena’s symbol of the bow and arrow.
The Shiv Sena (UBT) fought the 2024 Lok Sabha election on a ‘mashaal (flaming torch)’ symbol.
The Sena (UBT) challenged Speaker Narwekar’s decision in the Supreme Court, and the case is still pending.
In the Lok Sabha election earlier this year, the Shinde-led Sena and the Shiv Sena (UBT) had emerged as near equals. The two parties fought against each other directly in 13 seats, of which Shinde Sena won 7, while the Shiv Sena (UBT) won 6. The former’s seventh win that gave it an edge, however, came with a wafer-thin margin of 48 votes.
Overall, the Shiv Sena (UBT) posted a marginally better performance than the Shinde-led Shiv Sena in the Lok Sabha poll. It won 9 of the 21 seats it contested, while Shinde’s Shiv Sena won 7 of the 15 seats it contested.
What next for the two Shiv Senas
Political analysts say that immediately, the Shiv Sena (UBT) may see a steady drain of leaders making a beeline for the Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
“The Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) will both face this problem, but it might be less acute in the Shiv Sena (UBT) as there are likely to be Mumbai civic body polls sometime next year,” political commentator Abhay Deshpande told ThePrint.
If the Shiv Sena (UBT) fails to hold sway in the Mumbai municipal corporation polls, the party’s existential crisis will deepen. The Mumbai civic body is the richest municipal corporation in India and was the source of the undivided Shiv Sena’s pride and power. The undivided Shiv Sena ruled the Mumbai civic body for over 25 years.
The term of the general body expired in 2022 and fresh elections are yet to be held.
Political commentator Hemant Desai said, “The Shiv Sena under the Thackerays has seen this sorry state after many decades. There was a time in the 1970s when the Shiv Sena had faced electoral losses in Mumbai and Thane and Balasaheb Thackeray had offered to resign. Today’s state of the party is comparable to that time.”
It’s not that the undivided Shiv Sena has not seen success under Uddhav Thackeray’s leadership. It won 63 seats in the 2014 assembly polls when it contested solo, and 56 in 2019 when it contested in alliance with the BJP. Then, it took a risk and became part of the MVA with ideological rivals Congress and NCP after the 2019 polls.
“Now the Shiv Sena will have to really introspect on an ideological basis. The Hindutva agenda has gone to Eknath Shinde completely. There is no point in him [Thackeray] taking the same Hindutva brand. He should build on the progressive Hindutva agenda that the party had been moving towards over the past few years,” he said, adding that one of the biggest mistakes the Shiv Sena (UBT) made this election was to harp on a negative campaign about the Shinde-led Shiv Sena being a gang of traitors rather than talk about its vision for Maharashtra.
When Shinde had rebelled against the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and walked out, he had 40 MLAs in his corner. In these elections, not only did he retain those seats, he even expanded that number.
With the BJP reaching towards its best-ever tally in Maharashtra with more than 130 seats, surpassing its high of 2014 (122 seats), a second term as chief minister may not be a given for Shinde, but he has more than proved himself this election.
Speaking to reporters, Shinde said, “The MVA government had stayed all development in Maharashtra, whereas we prioritised it. We only spoke about the state’s holistic development, while they called us names. They kept saying, ‘We will go to the people’s court.’ Now that court has given its mandate.”
Sena’s bastions
The two Shiv Senas were directly pitted against each other in at least 52 of Maharashtra’s 288 seats this election. The Shinde-led Shiv Sena has won 36 of those.
Of the undivided Shiv Sena’s traditional bastions of Mumbai, Thane and Konkan, Shiv Sena (UBT) had an edge in Mumbai, where it won half of its total tally of 20. The Shinde-led Shiv Sena had an edge in the Thane and Palghar districts, as well as the undivided Shiv Sena’s traditional bastion of the Konkan region, particularly the Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts. Here, the Shinde-led Shiv Sena won eight of the nine seats where the two Senas were directly pitted against each other.
This region, one of the Shiv Sena’s oldest bastions, had slipped out of the Sena (UBT)’s hands during the Lok Sabha polls as the BJP’s Narayan Rane, who had started his political career with the Shiv Sena in the 1980s, won the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha seat, while the Ajit Pawar-led NCP’s Sunil Tatkare trounced the Shiv Sena (UBT) in the Raigad parliamentary seat.
Of all the seats where the two Shiv Senas were pitted against each other, 11 were in Mumbai. Here, the Shiv Sena (UBT) won in six seats, while the Shinde-led Shiv Sena won in five. Notably, the Shiv Sena (UBT) was able to safeguard key seats that have been considered to be the party’s strongholds such as Mahim, Worli (where scion Aaditya Thackeray won), Sewri and Bandra East.
In the Thane and Palghar districts, the Shinde-led Shiv Sena was leading in all eight seats the two parties contested against each other. Shinde himself won against his mentor Anand Dighe’s nephew, Kedar Dighe, fielded by the Shiv Sena (UBT) in the Kopri-Pachpakhadi constituency by a margin of 1.59 lakh votes.
The Maharashtra assembly polls were significant for both the parties, not just to cement their respective positions as the real Shiv Sena in the eyes of the public, but also to maximise their bargaining power with their respective alliances.
In the eyes of the BJP, the seniormost partner in the Mahayuti alliance, the utility of the Shinde-led Shiv Sena lies in its ability to counter the Shiv Sena (UBT) and capture as much of its space in Maharashtra politics as possible. For Shinde personally, too, a strong performance to negotiate a higher stake in power-sharing was important to consolidate his hold on the undivided Shiv Sena’s leaders and MLAs who had walked out of the Thackeray-led party, putting their belief in Shinde.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
