MUMBAI: The civic elections, if held as per the schedule this yr, will alter Mumbai’s profile — and the destiny of the Thackeray model of politics which has held sway over the town for 4 lengthy a long time. Whereas it stands on the quicksand of shifting loyalties, Matoshree has its eyes set on one of many nation’s richest civic our bodies – the Brihanmumbai Municipal Company — as its badge of honour, a weapon by which it might earn political heft. Nevertheless, in that endeavour, it has to remember deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, a proverbial camel within the Thackeray-BMC story.
The Uddhav-Shinde battle for BMC
That Shinde, a Shiv Sainik from Thane and a Balasaheb Thackeray devotee, ought to roll up his sleeves to decimate Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and wrest the BMC from Matoshree is a paradox which has been the sub-text of Maharashtra politics since June 2022.
Ought to the Supreme Court docket hand down its verdict on delimitation of BMC wards and reservation of seats effectively in time, elections to 29 big-ticket municipal companies (Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur, Aurangabad, amongst them); 257 municipal our bodies; 26 district councils and 289 panchayat samitis might be held in October this yr.
Battle for BMC
Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray faces a twin problem: retaining management over his get together’s money cow (BMC’s annual finances is pegged at an astronomical ₹77,000 crore-plus) and, secondly, retaining the Shinde-led Shiv Sena on a good leash.
The Marathi manoos, whose fealty to Balasaheb Thackeray is unflinching, is the one hope for Thackeray at a time when he faces his worst-ever political disaster, stated Sena watchers. Nevertheless, Thackeray should win over the post-2010 Shiv Sainiks who appear a trifle confused – for them Balasaheb is a distant thunder, a hazy fable; whereas Shinde is the ‘here and now’.
Tales of Shinde’s resource-raising capacity, straightforward accessibility and willingness to supply good-looking rewards to those that be a part of him maintain doing the rounds in Sena shakhas throughout the town. A 20-something karyakarta from Mumbai’s underprivileged class finds it onerous to withstand Shinde’s charisma and clout. Ditto with Ajit Pawar in rural Maharashtra.
Many within the Sena (UBT) suppose the Thackerays want an in-your-face narrative to scuttle the Shinde issue. Riling Shinde as ‘gaddar’ (he break up the Shiv Sena in 2022 and toppled the Uddhav Thackeray authorities with assist from the Bharatiya Janata Occasion) can’t provoke younger Shiv Sainiks to go for the jugular within the run as much as the polls, stated a Sena functionary.
Shinde, alternatively, grabs each alternative to impress the younger Shiv Sainiks – he waded into the Aurangzeb tomb controversy to not provide his tackle the Mughal historical past, however to flaunt his Hindutva credentials as towards Uddhav Thackeray’s curly-wurly secularism. The Kunal Kamra row was yet one more alternative for him to fit himself because the sabre-rattling hero of tough and prepared politics, which Balasaheb labored to perfection within the Seventies. Shinde retains repeating that the Sena (UBT) has misplaced its sheen and sting, and that he alone can revive the get together’s golden period. Thackerays are but to give you a wise punchline to counter Shinde.
“The situation is pretty grim. The BJP has appointed Eknath Shinde to finish off the Sena and he will do it with vengeance,” remarked a Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA, recalling Union residence minister Amit Shah’s assertion through the state elections in Mumbai, that traitors (the Thackeray Shiv Sena) should be punished for having snapped ballot ties with the BJP. “The punishment is terrible,” the Sena (UBT) MLA rued.
“It’s a do or die situation for Thackeray’s Sena,” stated well-known Shiv Sena chronicler Prakash Akolkar. Declaring that Thackeray’s downside started when his get together did not repeat its 2024 Lok Sabha efficiency through the state meeting polls held six months later, Akolkar stated, “As Thackeray can no longer distribute freebies like those in power do, he may find it hard to keep his flock together. Sadly, a sizeable section of his party workers is carried away by the BJP’s ‘labharthi’ (beneficiary) culture.”
Akolkar was equally essential of the BJP for denying Mumbaikars for 3 lengthy years their proper, assured by the Structure, to have an elected physique within the metropolis corridor. The BMC of 2017 ended its tenure in 2022. Bhushan Gagrani, a mild-mannered, but no-nonsense IAS officer of the 1990 batch, presides over the BMC administration.
Whereas the Opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) might effectively take the BJP to job for handing over the BMC to bureaucrats on a silver platter, the bald reality is Mumbaikars didn’t miss their corporators. Apathy? Dislike of politicians? Each are crimson flags for democracy.
Shinde’s problem with BMC
In the meantime, the 2 Senas have set their gaze on the Mumbai Metropolitan Area.
Whereas the Shinde Sena is well-entrenched in Thane, Kalyan and Dombivli, it lacks a well-knit organisational construction in Mumbai. The fledgeling get together should lean on the Thackeray Sena rebels to make a debut within the BMC headquarters, a breathtakingly magnificent construction of 1894 constructed within the Venetian Gothic and Indo Saracenic type.
As many as 40 Sena (UBT) ex-corporators have up to now defected to the Shinde Sena, and Matoshree fears that extra will comply with within the months to come back. “It’s only about money and more money,” rued a Sena (UBT) corporator.
However, Thackeray’s Sena nonetheless has many bravehearts – as senior get together functionary Shashank Kamat of Goregaon thinks the get together head will ultimately tide over the disaster. “Sena (UBT) has been cleansed of the filth. The defectors have left us. Now the river will flow smoothly,” stated Kamat. “For this to happen Uddhav Thackeray needs to shed his Garbosque aloofness,” Akolkar added.
BMC veterans say the decline in its administration started within the Nineteen Eighties when the Shiv Sena took cost of the town corridor. Many Marwari-Gujarati civic contractors, in gray safari and glossy sneakers, armed with gold-rimmed suitcases, appeared on the scene. The developer-civic officials-corporator nexus flourished following the state-sponsored SRA scheme. The omnipotent standing committee of the BMC retains everybody comfortable, throughout the political spectrum, whereas okaying civic contracts which run into crores.
In accordance with Akolkar, the brand new crop of metropolis daddies could also be extra rapacious than their predecessors. “Actually, political parties have begun to dread BMC elections as it will open a can of worms for their party.” And for Mumbai as effectively.
Shinde might discover it onerous to placate ticket-seekers knocking at his door. Alternatively, the BJP might attempt to maintain a sizeable chunk of tickets, in a 227-strong BMC, for itself in view of huge strain from the get together rank and file.
Given the fractured nature of polity, the civic elections might alter the equations in state politics, say analysts. As an illustration, the ruling Mahayuti’s stability of energy could also be upset if Shinde-Ajit Pawar do exceedingly effectively within the civic elections throughout Maharashtra.
In the meantime, aloof from the warmth and dirt of politics, Mumbai sprawls languorously, as Gulzar says in a poem, on the shores of the Arabian Sea. It takes the whole lot in its stride — air pollution, dangerous roads, congestion, stress, loneliness, and elections.
Mumbaikars know the right way to rise above pettiness and have a good time the town as did Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, David Sassoon, Nana Shankar Shet, poet Arun Kolatkar, M F Husain and Annabhau Sathe, the bard of the mill staff. By the way in which, Bhushan Gagrani, the BMC administrator, loves poetry.