Had Uddhav Thackeray not resigned as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra last June, the power dynamics would have seen a huge shift in the state on Thursday as the Supreme Court could have then reinstated him.
Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena faction head Uddhav Thackeray lost the party’s name and its registered bow and arrow symbol to Eknath Shinde, incumbent chief minister and head of the other faction of the splintered Shiv Sena. Now the direction of the Supreme Court to the Speaker of the Maharashtra assembly to decide on the disqualification petition filed by the Thackeray faction against Shinde and 16 others has come as a setback for the latter.
Thackeray had in his plea before the apex court requested the court to decide on the petition as it would be without prejudice or political considerations. With the Speaker being the final deciding authority on the petition, Thackeray will now have to gear for the next round of battle against Shinde and his faction.
The verdict of the Supreme Court may have given the Eknath Shinde-led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena-BJP government a breather, but it has scratched the credibility of the chief minister. Had Thackeray, the then-chief minister taken the floor test and not resigned, the verdict would have told a different story. He may have been reinstated as the Chief Minister and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government that he had led until June 2022 would have come back to rule.
Last June, when Shinde had brought down the MVA Government by breaking away with 40 MLAs and 13 MPs, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, the mentor of the government, had advised Thackeray against stepping down as the chief minister. Well conversant with the intricate happenings in politics, Pawar had asked Thackeray to go for a floor test despite the odds heavily stacked against the MVA government. Hit by the political avalanche and a divide in Shiv Sena, Thackeray had then taken a lifeline of quitting as the chief minister. Had he listened to Pawar, the power would have shifted on Thursday as he may have been reinstaed as chief minister by the SC bench hearing the petitions pertaining to the power shift in Maharashtra last June.
The SC has sent the disqualification petition filed by the Uddhav Thackeray faction against Shinde and 16 others to the speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly, Rahul Narvekar, and has directed him to decide on the same within 15 days. While Shinde breathes easy, Thackeray’s brow is furrowed with worry lines. Narvekar, a Shinde supporter who has been very vocal against Uddhav Thackeray, may find it tough to give the ruling.
In June 2022, Shinde with a sizeable number of the party MLAs and MPs splintered the Shiv Sena and aligned with the BJP to form a government in Maharashtra. Accusing Thackeray of compromising with the Hindutva ideology propagated by his father and party founder Balasaheb Thackeray, Shinde said that his former boss had not respected the mandate of the people. In the 2019 Assembly polls, the BJP and the Shiv Sena had contested in alliance. However, there was a fallout between the leaders of both parties after the elections. NCP chief Sharad Pawar had stepped in and stitched together a tripartite alliance of Shiv Sena, Congress Party and the NCP to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra.
In its ruling, the apex court passed severe strictures against the then Maharashtra Governor B S Koshyari for demanding a floor test and accepting the resignation of Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister. The court also passed strictures against the Shinde government. Despite these strictures, it is Uddhav Thackeray’s resignation that has saved the government of the day. The court observed that had Uddhav Thackeray taken the floor test and not resigned before it, he could have been reinstated as the chief minister. Since he had resigned without taking the floor test, he cannot be reinstated now.
In the eventuality of the speaker giving a verdict in favor of Shinde, the losses to Uddhav Thackeray in terms of supporters would be too much. Some of the MLAs and MPs who support him may gravitate towards Shinde. This will decimate Uddhav Thackeray’s base of elected representatives, probably making a comeback tough. If the verdict goes against Shinde, then he will be disqualified as an MLA and the Maharashtra government will collapse.
For both these factions of the Shiv Sena led by Thackeray and Shinde, the future course of politics is gravely important, keeping in view the elections of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) that are likely to be held sometime this year. The BMC elections are important as the party that controls the BMC will control the state, as per the popular belief.
Though the strictures against Koshyari is being seen as a “moral victory” for Thackeray, it did not appear to be so. Leaders in the other constituent parties of the MVA —the Congress Party and the NCP— have started placing extra emphasis on Thackeray’s resignation. Like Thackeray, for both these parties, staying out of power has resulted in an increase in disgruntlement within the party and an erosion of base. With the Maharashtra assembly elections slated for late 2024, the BJP has strengthened its poaching tactics and is looking at Congress and the NCP as fertile poaching grounds.
Like the Thackeray faction, the Shinde group too has filed disqualification petition against Thackeray and other MLAs who support him. With both groups filing these petitions against each other, Narvekar’s decision is crucial. The future course and survival of both the Shiv Sena factions depends on this decision. The initial years of the Shiv Sena saw the birth of identity politics, giving the Marathi pride a big boost. Then came its aggressive pursuance of Hindutva and anti-Muslim rhetoric, which brought the Shiv Sena closer to the BJP. Today, Shinde has emerged not only as a challenger to Thackeray’s Shiv Sena but has also become a close ally of senior BJP leadership who has trained their guns on decimating Thackeray’s hold over the Shiv Sena.