Maharashtra is still an Opposition bastion, standing tall and raring for a fight. That was the message that rang out from the Shivaji Park mega rally in Mumbai last week.
The signal for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was that the state was neither Gujarat nor Uttar Pradesh. Only after the show of strength by the INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc did the BJP commence talks with Raj Thackeray to rope in the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Raj landing in New Delhi for a meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah two days after the Mumbai rally was proof that the BJP needs additional reinforcements in the state.
The induction of Raj into the NDA would make Uddhav even more bitter towards the BJP. This controversial entry, however, would send a wrong message to the northern Indians residing in Maharashtra, especially Mumbai, and to the BJP’s core constituency in the North.
The MNS is not seen as a hardline Hindutva party but a hardline Marathi nationalist one and is not one that has been very friendly to the north Indians in the state.
In the BJP-led Mahayuti, the induction of the MNS would create bad blood among other allies as already there is palpable tension within the Shinde Sena and Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) about how many seats the BJP would finally give to them in the Lok Sabha polls. Assembly elections in Maharashtra are scheduled for October-November this year, making the Lok Sabha results even more crucial.
As expected, Rahul Gandhi was bound to be the cynosure of all eyes in the rally and the Congress was seen as the fulcrum of the Opposition fightback at the rally, marking the conclusion of the Manipur to Mumbai Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.
With the electoral bonds issue snowballing into a major controversy, the timing of the Shivaji Park rally for an attack on the PM and his style of governance was perfect. The controversial Chandigarh Mayoral poll and the strictures passed by the Supreme Court also weighed heavily on the minds of the Opposition as to the designs of the ruling party. And now, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is in ED (Enforcement Directorate) custody.
Raja ki jaan EVM mein hai was the punchline as the speakers took potshots at the Election Commission.
As Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin likened the bonds issue to “white collar corruption” of the BJP, a galaxy of Opposition leaders including Sharad Pawar of the NCP and Tejashwi Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal kept up the offensive on the way the ED, the Central Bureau of Investigation, and the Income Tax Department is used to target the detractors of the BJP.
The Symbolism of Shivaji Park
Despite grabbing power in the state by splitting two regional parties, the BJP is facing a fierce challenge despite its best efforts to politically decimate Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar. With 48 Lok Sabha seats, second only to Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra is crucial for the BJP’s electoral ambitions having declared ab ki baar, 400 paar.
In the 2019 assembly elections, the BJP’s alliance with the Shiv Sena secured 41 seats (BJP 23 and Sena 18), providing a strong foundation for Modi’s second term. The Congress could win only one seat, and the Nationalist Congress Party won four seats. However, much water has flown since the recent political upheavals, turning the terrain difficult and treacherous.
Since toppling the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi, the BJP has failed to stabilise the state's politics. The gathering at Shivaji Park, the home turf of the Shiv Sena, also from the city in which the Mahatma called on the British to Quit India in 1942, there was much zeal in both Uddhav and Rahul.
It is on this ground that the Shiv Sena has been organising the annual Dussehra rally since its inception way back in 1966, raising the 'son of the soil issue'. Shivaji Park was also witness to a Congress rally in December 2003 at which the then party chief Sonia Gandhi expressed readiness for an alliance with like-minded secular parties to remove the BJP-led government at the Centre.
For the BJP, it was this ground on which Vajpayee (in December 2005), who lost power in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, retired from politics and assumed the role of sage Parshuram to declare L K Advani and the late Pramod Mahajan as Ram and Lakshman, respectively in the onward march of the party
The rally this time around showed that the Congress and the Shiv Sena, daggers drawn over their policy and approaches till some three years back, have become bosom friends. Long before the whole foes-turned-friends, a section in the grand old party used to insist that Uddhav Thackeray’s party was its ‘natural ally’. Vice versa, Uddhav Thackeray’s party, which has been the oldest ideological ally of the BJP, has now become its staunchest critic.
(Sunil Gatade is a former Associate Editor of the Press Trust of India. Venkatesh Kesari is an independent journalist. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)