For Uddhav Thackeray, One Year Down But Four More to Go – The Wire

The most notable aspect of the first anniversary of the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition government is just the fact that it has completed a year.

Ordinarily, this would hardly be news, since governments are supposed to last for five years, but here it is of great significance. Given that observers had predicted that the coalition, with Uddhav Thackeray, would collapse because of infighting among partners, his lack of experience and an aggressive BJP on the warpath to woo away disgruntled legislators from the ruling set up, he has stayed the course.

More surprisingly, he has won over admirers not just for astute handling of the coalition, but also for his sober demeanour in the face of multiple crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and most of all, in standing up to the Modi government and the BJPs campaign to undermine and dislodge him. Thackeray remains unflappable, and is not steeped in the belligerence of the Sena culture he is determined to slowly change the Shiv Sena to prepare for the future while not appearing to give up its core values and agenda of looking after the interests of the Marathi manoos.

Also read: One Year of the Maha Vikas Aghadi: Hits, Misses and Vendetta Politics

Thus, his party has eschewed its natural tendency to get violent on the streets a hitherto normal way of behaviour and this is something that Mumbai residents are pleasantly surprised with. Thackeray Jr is a big change from his father Bal Thackeray, under whom the Sena, with its nativist and later Hindutva agenda, was a force of disruption, going after linguistic and religious minorities and running the rich city like a fiefdom.

Uddhav Thackeray standing in front of a poster of Bal and Aditya Thackeray in 2015. Photo: PTI

Thackeray also had a golden rule he would never stand for an election, nor would he occupy a political post. He was content to place his own nominees there and be the remote control a behind the scenes puppet master whose very word was law.

Uddhav Thackeray, therefore, was an outlier, not just accepting but craving the post. It was over a power-sharing arrangement Devendra Fadnavis and Uddhav Thackeray would be chief minister for two and a half years that the partners of 25 years, Shiv Sena and BJP fell out after they had won the elections in 2019. Thackeray felt that the BJP was backing out of their deal; the BJP pretended that no such deal had been made. The BJPs calculation had been that the Sena had nowhere to go and would, in the end, lump it and stay put.

But the strategists of the BJP, Amit Shah in particular, had underestimated not just Thackeray, who was smarting, but also Maharashtras politicians, especially the wily Sharad Pawar. He worked assiduously behind the scenes, convinced a reluctant Congress an old rival of Shiv Sena and helped cobble together a most unlikely partnership. The BJP was shell shocked.

Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray and other leaders. Photo: PTI

The BJP did not give up. In a clandestine operation at the crack of dawn of November 23, it got Devendra Fadnavis sworn in as the chief minister, with Sharad Pawars nephew Ajit Pawar as deputy. The ambitious nephew had been wanting to break away from under his uncles shadow and this was his chance. His part of the deal was to bring an adequate number of MLAs with him, enough to form a state government.

Also read | The Nephew Revolts: The Story Behind Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawars Oath Taking

This unholy arrangement collapsed in 80 or so hours and the nephew, unable to deliver on the MLAs, returned home to his own party, the NCP. Fadnavis was left licking his wounds.

Since then, the BJP has left no stone unturned to bring the government down with all the weapons in its armoury, including using friendly television anchors such as Arnab Goswami to run a campaign against Thackeray and his government, holding back funds to Maharashtra, taking away cases from local police and deploying investigating agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate against Sena men. A few months ago, as the frenzy around the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput was whipped up, social media messages full of innuendo against young Aaditya Thackeray did the rounds. Thackeray has stood up to these onslaughts.

There have been governance challenges too the pandemic in the state and especially Mumbai and other cities, rural distress, job losses among the urban poor, among them. Not all have been tackled.

A year ago, there was optimism that the MVA would take a more humane view of the activists who had been jailed for over two years then on unproven charges of conspiracy in the violence in Bhima Koregaon. The MVA was slow to move on it and the BJP government at the centre swooped in and took over the case. But even where it could, such as in the case of octogenarian poet Varavara Rao, who is also in jail, the government was found wanting in providing him with medical facilities.

Also read: Arnab Goswami Arrest: The Maharashtra Police Is Getting Dangerously Politicised and Partisan

Thackeray can take some solace from the fact that he has held up well so far, not the least because of his mentor and adviser Sharad Pawar, and that he has bested the BJP. But he cannot remain sanguine politically.

Coalition partners are silent, but privately, politicians from other parties and especially the Congress, express their dissatisfaction of not getting what they think is their due, by way of political and other appointments. The Senas own legislators and rank and file is not fully happy with this arrangement. For them, their natural ally is the BJP.

But the BJP in the state is in a mess there is dissatisfaction with Fadnavis and there is a clear sense of drift, with no clear strategy against the government except criticising everything. Besides, senior BJP leaders like Eknath Khadse have left the party to join the NCP.

Yet, Thackeray still has four years to go and he will need all his resources and political skills to run his ship till the next elections.

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For Uddhav Thackeray, One Year Down But Four More to Go - The Wire