With the high-stakes Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) poll round the corner, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Devendra Fadnavis is playing the ‘Marathi manoos’ (Marathi sons-of-soil) card to break the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction’s dominance over Mumbai’s Marathi vote-bank and wrest the BMC from the Thackeray clan’s control.
Last week, Mr. Fadnavis, kicked of the BJP’s campaign for the BMC by accusing the Shiv Sena under Uddhav Thackeray of being responsible for the ‘displacement’ of the indigenous Marathi populace.
“Today, it is because of you [Uddhav Thackeray] that the Marathi populace is forced to move beyond Vasai-Virar in search of houses…Despite having thousands of crores of rupees as the BMC’s budget, you could not resolve the problem of affordable housing for the Marathi manoos,” claimed Mr. Fadnavis, addressing a rally of BJP workers.
At the same time, while heaping blame on the Thackeray-led Sena, he was careful to distinguish that the Sena led by Eknath Shinde – the BJP’s coalition ally in the new Maharashtra government – was the ‘real’ Shiv Sena of Bal Thackeray’s ideals and that both parties would fly the saffron over the BMC in the coming poll.
That a national party like the BJP is playing the regional card at this juncture is hardly surprising given that Chief Minister and Thane strongman Eknath Shinde’s revolt has split the Sena wide open while plunging Bal Thackeray’s party into a legitimacy crisis.
The Uddhav Thackeray camp has been severely weakened with the defection of 40 (of its 55) MLAs and 12 MPs who have joined Chief Minister Shinde.
The BJP is now going in for the kill knowing fully well that Mr. Thackeray’s core marathi vote-bank, which have been steadily split over the years, will now see a further fragmentation as a number among the electorate are expected to switch loyalties to the Shinde camp.
Another key factor in favour of the BJP is its assured grip over Mumbai’s North Indian vote-bank, which comprises nearly 20% of the electorate of Mumbai city today making it the most critical electorate after Marathi voters.
The North Indian electorate is prominent in nearly 100 of the 227 BMC wards.
In the past, the Sena’s strident nativism and play on ‘Marathi identity’ had resulted in this vote-bank gravitating towards first the Congress and then the BJP.
Today, with the party under Uddhav Thackeray and Aaditya Thackeray attempting to ‘soften’ the Sena’s image as a ‘moderate’ party capable of taking along all sections and communities, the Uddhav faction faces a challenge owing to its lack of strong leaders among the North Indian electorate.
While the BJP has strong north Indian faces like Kripashankar Singh and Rajhans Singh to name a few, the Uddhav faction has no comparable leader despite Aaditya Thackeray’s strenuous efforts in recent months – like his Ayodhya visit – to woo Mumbai’s North Indian voters.
This leaves only the Thackeray clan’s core Marathi-speaking base which the BJP is aggressively targeting following Eknath Shinde’s revolt.
The cash-rich BMC, said to be the richest civic body in Asia, is the Shiv Sena – and the Thackeray clan’s - lifeline and power-base in Maharashtra.
While the Sena has held absolute sway over the Mumbai civic body for two decades, the BJP – riding high on the ‘Narendra Modi wave’ in 2017 had rattled its former ally in the 2017 civic body poll, when it snared 82 of the total 227 seats, second only to the Sena’s tally of 84 seats. The Sena’s strength later increased to 97 with the support of some independents and the defection of some corporators from the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).
Not just Mumbai civic body, but the BJP-Shinde faction is looking to supplant the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) which includes the civic bodies of Thane, Navi Mumbai and Kalyan-Dombivli.
It is attempting to wean away indigenous Marathi voters from the Thackerays.
A significant move in this regard is the politicization of the Dahi Handi festival during the Janmashthami celebrations last week.
Mr. Shinde had announced his government would recognize the Dahi Handi – where human towers are formed by participants known as Govindas who attempt to reach out the earthen pot containing curds – as an adventure sport.
Besides providing an insurance cover of Rs. 10 lakh for these Govindas, Mr. Shinde also announced a 5% reservation for them in government jobs, sparking a furore amongst the Opposition parties across the State.
Yet, Mr. Fadnavis claim that the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena had ‘displaced’ the Marathi manoos is ironical given that barring the two-and-a-half years where Mr. Thackeray aligned his party with the ideologically opposed Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress in the previous MVA government, the Sena and Mr. Thackeray had been in long-standing alliance with the BJP for over two decades.
In this vein, Mr. Thackeray, hitting out at the BJP, drolly remarked that it seemed curtains had rung on the ‘Modi era’ given that Mr. Fadnavis was seeking votes in the name of Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray instead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The fact that Devendra Fadnavis is seeking votes [ahead of the BMC poll] in Balasaheb’s name is an acknowledgment and recognition that the Modi era is over,” quipped Mr. Thackeray.
