As
expected, after the announcement of assembly elections, the tug-of-war over the
seat sharing has started between Uddhav Thackeray and the Congress leadership.
This tug-of-war has raised fresh question mark on Uddhav Thackeray &
political credibility.
In
this game of the seat sharing, Uddhav Thackeray will have to decide whether to
bow down to Congress and Sharad Pawar and be satisfied with around 100 seats or
to fight the election on his own.
Eventually
at the end of this game a time will come when Uddhav will have to introspect
what he really achieved by breaking the alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party.
In the 25-year journey
from 1989 to 2014 Lok Sabha elections, revered Balasaheb Thackeray’s Shiv Sena
was always given a status of only.
In
assembly elections from 1990 to 2009 the formula for seat sharing was 171 seats
to Shiv Sena and 117 seats to Bharatiya Janata Party.
It
was agreed between revered Balasaheb and then BJP leaders Pramod Mahajan,
Gopinath Munde, Nitin Gadkari, Pandurang Fundkar that the party with more
number of MLAs will get the chief ministerial post.
According
to this formula, when Yuti government came to power in 1995, the post of Chief
Minister went to Shiv Sena and the post of Deputy Chief Minister went to
Bharatiya Janata Party. In 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party asked Uddhav
Thackeray to make a slight change in this seat sharing formula, Uddhav Thackery
by showing extreme stubbornness rejected Bharatiya Janata Party’s demand and
announced the decision to contest the election independently.
In
2014,Considering the changed situation in the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party
had demanded 140 to 145 seats together with allies. After deciding to contest
the 2014 assembly elections independently, during the election campaign Uddhav
Thackeray started criticizing the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership in a very
inappropriate language.
Even
if the talks on seat sharing failed, considering his 25-year alliance with the
BJP, Uddhav Thackeray was expected to at least show some restraint while
talking about the BJP leadership.
But Uddhav Thackeray and
his colleagues targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party instead of the Congress and
the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which was till then their number one
enemy. Despite the very low level of criticism from Uddhav Thackeray, the leadership
of the Bharatiya Janata Party took a sensible stand that we will not criticize
Uddhav Thackeray because he is revered Balasaheb Thackeray’s son.
Forgetting
what happened in the assembly elections, the BJP leadership included Uddhav
Thackeray in the state government. Uddhav Thackeray, who was in power with
Bharatiya Janata Party in the central and state government, continued to lash
out at the Modi government and the BJP leadership.
Keeping in mind that we
were together in the central and the state government, in 2017 the BJP
leadership proposed to Uddhav Thackeray to contest all the local body elections
including the Mumbai Municipal Corporation as an alliance. But Uddhav Thackeray,
who was extremely delusional about his strength, rejected BJP’s proposal with
great arrogance.
In
Mumbai Municipal Corporation elections voters gave a big blow to Uddhav
Thackeray who claimed to have more strength in Mumbai.
Bharatiya
Janata Party got only 3 seats less than Shiv Sena. Until the 2019 Lok Sabha
elections were round the corner, Uddhav Thackeray and all his colleagues
continued vicious criticism of each and every decision of the Modi government.
Shiv
Sena mouthpiece Samana kept criticizing the Modi government with language like
calling demonetization a financial massacre.
Despite
this, keeping the broader perspective of Hindutva in mind, the Bharatiya Janata
Party proposed an alliance with Uddhav Thackeray in the 2019 Lok Sabha
elections.
Everyone
knows in detail how the subsequent history unfolded after the results of the
assembly elections. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Maha Vikas Aghadi won
more seats than the Mahayuti in Maharashtra.
Assuming
that the credit of this success belongs to him only, Uddhav Thackeray is
insisting to the Congress and Sharad Pawar that he should be announced as the
chief ministerial face.
Congress and Sharad Pawar
are not paying any heed to this childish demand. Although Sharad Pawar and the
Congress leadership have repeatedly ignored his demand, Uddhav Thackeray has
repeatedly stuck to his demand to announce the chief ministerial face.
Uddhav
Thackeray is not even bothered that he is making a fool out of himself because
of this.
The
National spokesperson of Congress has made a public statement that Uddhav
Thackeray should keep in mind that the success in the Lok Sabha elections is
not due to Uddhav Thackeray but due to the traditional and Muslim voters of
Congress.
Uddhav
Thackeray and any of his colleagues, who keep on talking about self-respect and
identity, have not objected to this stance of Congress.
The
UBT group is silent about the Congress and Sharad Pawar, who are defying Uddhav
Thackeray by saying that they will not announce the chief ministerial face.
He is clinging on to Maha
Vikas Aghadi without thinking about self-respect and honour. Now Uddhav
Thackeray has only two options, either he will have to accept the seats given
by Sharad Pawar and Congress or fight the election on his own just like 2014.
Since
Uddhav Thackeray is still extremely delusional about his strength, he will not
hesitate to checkmate Congress and Sharad Pawar as well.
Uddhav Thackeray craving
for power has not yet been fulfilled as he had to step down from the post of
Chief Minister after two and a half years.
He
is likely to do anything for that. While taking stock of his achievements in
this game, Uddhav Thackeray will probably realize how much he had to pay for
his decisions of distancing himself. But only condition for this will be honest
stock taking. Then and only then he will be able to know why he has just become
a mere pawn in the game of politics.
(Article Pre-Published in
Times of India Online – 21 October 2024)
Keshav Upadhye, Chief
Spokesperson
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