Bereft of new allies after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s intra-party rebellion split the Shiv Sena, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction on Friday announced an alliance with the pro-Maratha Sambhaji Brigade.
This decision is being seen as a way for Mr. Thackeray to make good his loss after Mr. Shinde’s revolt has severely depleted his faction of a number of Maratha leaders.
Speaking in Mumbai, Mr. Thackeray, the Sena president and former Chief Minister, stressed that the alliance with the Brigade had not been done keeping in mind electoral gains, but to preserve regional identity and save democracy.
Hitting out at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), his estranged one-time ally, Mr. Thackeray said: “Today, the Constitution and the very essence of democracy is in danger. There are some people [alluding to the BJP] who regard finishing-off regional parties as ‘democracy’. Hence, to uphold democratic ideals and preserve regional identity, we have formed this alliance with the Brigade. Had this alliance been only for electoral gain, then the Sambhaji Brigade would not have come and joined us now.”
Responding to the different ideologies of the Brigade and the Sena, Mr. Thackeray said that even the BJP today did not follow the ideology of its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
“The BJP of today ignores the stance taken by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat,” alleged Mr. Thackeray.
Manoj Akhare, president, Sambhaji Brigade, said that the decision to ally with Mr. Thackeray’s Sena was taken keeping in mind the “welfare of Maharashtra and given that democracy was under threat in the country today.”
“For the last 30 years, the Sambhaji Brigade has been working on diverse social issues and striving to ensure justice for all castes and communities. In November 2016, we registered as a political party and decided to contest in elections at all levels, from local bodies to State Assembly polls. Today, for the good of Maharashtra, we have come together with the Shiv Sena to form a new political equation in the State,” Mr. Akhare said, while lauding Mr. Thackeray as a pro-people CM.
Despite having taken opposing stances in the past, Mr. Akhare said that both the Sambhaji Brigade and the Shiv Sena (Thackeray faction) were “progressive parties.”
Maratha identity
Known for its virulent anti-Brahmin posture, the Brigade — an offshoot of the Maratha Seva Sangh — has worked mainly on issues pertaining to Maratha and other backward communities, while essaying a frontline role during the Maratha quota agitation in 2015 and 2016.
The Sambhaji Brigade had infamously snared headlines in January 2004 after it ransacked the Pune-based Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), which houses one of South Asia’s largest and most invaluable agglomeration of rare manuscripts, while protesting against Mr. Laine’s book on Shivaji titled Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India (2003).
In 2017, the Brigade had vandalised the bust of iconic Marathi litterateur Ram Ganesh Gadkari in Pune’s Sambhaji Park on grounds that the writer, in his unfinished play Raj Sanyas, had allegedly “defamed” the Maratha King Sambhaji (son of Chhatrapati Shivaji) by portraying him as an alcoholic and a womaniser.
However, the Brigade’s longest feud has been with the late right-wing historian and Shivaji expert Babasaheb Purandare.
The Brigade has repeatedly claimed that the historian had deliberately “falsified” the history of the 17th century Maratha warrior King with “a malafide intent”.
Incidentally, Mr. Purandare had been a prominent Shiv Sena ideologue in the party’s early years.
Reacting cautiously to Mr. Akhare’s characterisation of the Sena as “progressive”, Mr. Thackeray said in a lighter vein: “These are heavy words. Ours [Sena’s] is a simpler and more direct approach. You [Brigade] have joined the Shiv Sena because of our approach and I welcome these fierce fighters [Brigade members].”
The Brigade has been vehemently opposed to the BJP and its ‘Hindutva’. Mr. Thackeray’s Shiv Sena has been a long-standing ally of the BJP before he severed ties to ally with the ideologically opposed NCP and Congress to form the MVA in late 2019.
When questioned about the inclusion of the Sambhaji Brigade into the MVA fold, Mr. Thackeray observed that BJP stalwart and late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) too had nearly thirty regional parties in it.
