In Maharashtra’s BJP-Shiv Sena-MNS Slugfest, Fadnavis Cuts a Sorry Figure

His attempts to shake Uddhav don’t have the Modi-Shah duo’s backing. Worse, his tactics have strengthened the MVA.

It’s hardly surprising that the ugly slugfest between the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government of Uddhav Thackeray in Maharashtra and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has turned communal.

After failing to tarnish Uddhav’s image of sobriety and competence, to split the MVA and dislodge the regime in power with the usual artillery consisting of allegations of corruption, COVID mismanagement and police malfunctioning, the BJP has fallen back on its favourite ploy of polarisation in a last-ditch attempt to bring down the Thackeray government.

The communal temperature soared further after MNS chief Raj Thackeray jumped into the fray. Raj has no qualms about the language and tactics he uses. He has raised the pitch with threats to recite the Hanuman Chalisa outside mosques if Muslims don’t tone down their loudspeakers and simultaneously launched a distasteful broadside against not only his cousin Uddhav but also against the doyen of Maharashtra politics, Sharad Pawar.

Former BJP Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis followed suit with a series of 14 consecutive tweets on Ambedkar Jayanti, in which he slammed Pawar for everything under the sun, including appeasement politics and casteism.

Uddhav's MVA Government Stands Strong

Almost as if on cue, Raj Thackeray picked up the thread with a vicious anti-Pawar speech on Maharashtra Day on 1 May. He virtually repeated everything that Fadnavis had said two weeks earlier.

MVA leaders responded with disdain. Uddhav accused the BJP of deceiving his gullible father Bal Thackeray while Pawar swatted Raj like a fly to say that he shouldn’t be taken seriously.

So far, the attempt to rock the MVA boat has failed. The government has responded with a cool head and a firm hand, slapping cases against Raj, including one that is 14 years old, and threatening him with arrest.

It also worked the back channels with Muslim groups to ensure that there was no provocation on Eid. In fact, most mosques kept their loudspeakers at a low volume to deprive Raj and his MNS workers of an opportunity to make good their threat to disrupt public peace.

BJP & MNS Have Revealed Their Hand

What has happened instead is that the opponents of the government have unwittingly revealed their hand. Political circles in Maharashtra believe that Fadnavis and Raj are acting in concert and their attempts to destabilise the MVA do not have the blessings of the BJP’s top brass.

This is apparent from the fact that Fadnavis is doing most of the running on his own and has failed to galvanise the party cadre to support him. In fact, BJP leaders in the state privately complain that the constant attack by Fadnavis has only strengthened the alliance and cemented the political understanding between Uddhav and Pawar.

The resurrection of Raj is unexpected and appears to be a Fadnavis initiative. Raj was very vocal and active during the 2019 Lok Sabha election, but on the other side of the fence. He was one of the most bitter critics of Modi and the BJP and used to enthral crowds with his oratory. It may be remembered that in those elections, Uddhav’s Shiv Sena was in alliance with the BJP.

Raj failed to deliver on behalf of the Congress-NCP and the BJP-Shiv Sena combine swept the state, winning 41 of the 48 seats.

Soon after the election, Raj found a slew of ED cases slapped on him, and from being very visible and vocal, he fell silent and vanished from the political arena.

A Long-Nursed Grudge

He remained invisible for three years and has surfaced only now, apparently at the behest of Fadnavis, who decided to put his oratorical skills to use to achieve his one burning ambition: bring down the MVA government and become Chief Minister again. It is an ambition he has harboured since he was thwarted by Pawar in his bid to form a government after the Assembly elections in 2019. Fadnavis was sworn in as Chief Minister in a midnight ceremony with Pawar’s nephew, Ajit, as his Deputy Chief Minister.

Within hours, Ajit Pawar was back with his uncle and Fadnavis lost his chance of being Chief Minister. Interestingly, BJP state leaders believe that neither Modi nor Shah supported the attempted midnight coup by Fadnavis and stayed clear of the political games that followed, which saw an Uddhav-led MVA government take birth.

The Awkward Entry of the Rana Couple

Apart from roping Raj in to raise communal temperatures and putting Uddhav on the backfoot, Fadnavis is believed to have also enlisted the services of an Independent MP-MLA couple, Navneet and Ravi Rana, to up the ante on the Hanuman Chalisa row. The Ranas were subsequently arrested for threatening to recite the Hanuman Chalisa outside the residence of the Chief Minister. After a few days in jail, they have been released on conditional bail.

However, political circles are surprised by the entry of the Rana couple into the ongoing communal slugfest. Both were elected as Independents and do not have any party affiliation as such. But what links them to Fadnavis is that they hail from Amravati, which is the constituency next to Nagpur from where the former BJP Chief Minister hails. They say that Fadnavis has known the Rana family for a long time.

Fadnavis Reduced to a Pitiable Figure

Fadnavis’s repeated failed attempts to bring down the MVA government and his recent flirtation with Hindutva politics reduced him to a pitiable figure. Nothing fails like failure. Worse, playing communal politics does not sit well with him. He was never a ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat’, unlike Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, whose saffron branding goes back to long before he joined the BJP.

However, the most interesting aspect of the slugfest in Maharashtra is the stony silence from New Delhi. The Modi-Shah duo seem to have adopted a hands-off policy and left Fadnavis to his own devices, even as the Prime Minister entertains Pawar at his office in Parliament in every session.

Fadnavis may soon find himself lost in the chakravyuh (whirlpool) created by Sharad Pawar, who is known as one of the canniest political leaders ever.

(Arati R Jerath is a Delhi-based senior journalist. She tweets @AratiJ. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)