Maharashtra | Rumble in the Mahayuti jungle

If not for such a thing as an actual Opposition, you would sometimes be hard put to suss out where the enemy lines actually lie in Maharashtra. Check out the latest war report: a fracas during a local election saw two ministers and a Rajya Sabha MP being allegedly assaulted by the police, as two other ministers watched on. Of the victims, one was from the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction); the other two from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Ajit Pawar faction; the onlookers were from the BJP. That is, the three parties that share power in the state.

The arrest of self-styled godman Ashok Kharat, similarly, exacted blood from the NCP, with the state women’s commission chief being scalped and the state president under a cloud. It was this latent animosity between the ruling triumvirate that got physical in Satara, during the recent local body polls. Even if you put it down to local-level competition, it was proof, all over again, that the ruling Mahayuti alliance is a very unruly fissile compound all around.

The BJP was in a grudge match with the Sena-NCP for the Satara zilla parishad (ZP) chief’s post. The latter had an edge with 35 members; the BJP had only 28. Things got so heated that both fronts sequestered their members to prevent poaching! The son of NCP ZP member Bapusaheb Shinde still lodged a police complaint alleging his father had been kidnapped.

On election day, March 20, high-voltage drama erupted as tourism minister Shambhuraj Desai (Sena), relief and rehabilitation minister Makarand Patil and Rajya Sabha MP Nitin Patil (both NCP) were ‘manhandled’ by the police in the parishad building. The police took two NCP members into custody based on the kidnapping plaint.

The detention of two members, and the added benefit of defection by three NCP and two Sena members, ensured the BJP’s Priya Shinde was elected the ZP president, defeating the NCP’s Manisha Phadtare. An incensed Desai, the guardian minister of Satara who was hurt in the fracas, warned that he would take the fight with the BJP to its logical end. In the legislative council, he charged that it was unprecedented for a minister to be manhandled by the police and that SP Tushar Doshi had behaved like a “domestic servant”. Council deputy chairperson Neelam Gorhe directed that Doshi and his juniors be suspended—an order stayed later by the BJP council chairman Ram Shinde!

FRAGILE CEASEFIRE

Sena and NCP MLAs soon scaled up their protests on the steps of the state legislature. Inside, during the budget session, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis sought to calm the waters, promising an inquiry and appropriate action (SP Doshi was later sent on leave). Desai and Patil also threatened to resign from the cabinet, but then deputy CM Eknath Shinde met Fadnavis, and an understanding was struck. The reasons for the grouse linger on, though.

The BJP-Shinde Sena conflict has another angle, says a senior leader of the rival Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray). The present flare-up coincided with the deputy CM’s visit to New Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, amid rumours that he would launch ‘Operation Tiger’ to engineer defections from the nine Lok Sabha MPs of the Sena (UBT). The BJP is eager to get any UBT rebels on its side rather than allow Shinde to strengthen himself. The talk is that the Shinde Sena has a “Fadnavis Sena” within it, a caucus more loyal to the CM. Similarly, some NCP MLAs too are said to be sitting on the fence after being wooed by the BJP. This could be a short intermission.