Editorial: Uphill task for Uddhav

Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar’s ruling that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction is the real Shiv Sena comes as a big setback for the faction helmed by former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. While rejecting the petition by Thackeray to disqualify 16 Shiv Sena MLAs, including Shinde, the Speaker ruled that at the time of the party’s split in June 2022, the Shinde faction had the majority and hence could be called the real Shiv Sena. The Speaker’s verdict comes almost a year after the Election Commission granted the party name ‘Shiv Sena’ and party symbol — bow and arrow — to the Shinde faction. Though the Uddhav group has vowed to move the Supreme Court, challenging the Speaker’s order, the political battle to reclaim the party, founded by his father Bal Thackeray, appears to be virtually over for the former Chief Minister. The 2022 revolt by Shinde leading to a split in the party and the subsequent change of guard had a BJP stamp all over it. The political drama had all the elements of the toppling template mastered by the saffron party: First, fuel rebellion and engineer defections in the ruling party or the coalition in a State and then strike at an opportune time to grab power. This was pretty much the pattern followed in several other States to dislodge the non-BJP governments, including Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Manipur and Puducherry. A coup engineered by Shinde had cleaved the party that was founded in 1966.

With the majority of the Sena MLAs backing Shinde, then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was forced to quit rather than face a floor test. This led to the collapse of the Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, which had the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress as junior partners. The MVA was a fragile coalition riddled with inner conflicts, which made it more vulnerable to the BJP’s game plan. The Speaker’s verdict has now strengthened Shinde’s position further with the elections around the corner. Maharashtra will witness simultaneous polls to the Assembly and Lok Sabha in April-May. It is an uphill task for Uddhav to keep the morale of his supporters high and stay in the electoral competition. The fresh setback may also adversely impact his outfit’s bargaining power in seat-sharing negotiations with the Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP faction. For now, Shinde is the claimant of Balasaheb’s political legacy and has the backing of the BJP and the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the NCP. No doubt, the split in the party and its unsavoury aftermath have not only undermined the sanctity of the electoral mandate but also brought into question the efficacy of the anti-defection law. The alarming ease with which MLAs are able to jump ship and yet escape disqualification makes it obvious that the law needs to be overhauled.