Eknath Shinde Is Maharashtra CM: Here Are The Top Ten Takeaways

Shiv Sena rebel Eknath Shinde’s swearing in, as Chief Minister of Maharashtra, is an unexpected move which changes the political dynamics of the state. He replaces party founder Bal Thackeray’s son, Uddhav, who was humiliatingly forced to quit office when Shinde’s rebellion reduced the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government to a minority.

Most observers thought that Devendra Fadnavis of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would stake his claim, and form a government supported by the Shinde faction and a dozen others. Instead, it appears that the BJP have ‘done a Sonowal’ here. When they swept Assam in 2016, many BJP-watchers felt that Himanta Biswa Sarma ought to be chief minister. But the BJP kept its given word to Sarbananda Sonowal, supported his elevation as CM, and honourably brought in Sarma only after Sonowal completed a successful five-year term, and then moved to the centre.

Similarly, the BJP’s long game here seems to be, to support Shinde and a Sena-led government till the next assembly elections in 2024. Pertinently, Devendra Fadnavis has been sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister in the Shinde cabinet, and that is telling. It is a smart move with myriad implications.

First, Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena has been reduced to a metropolitan relic. As it is, their regions of strength had largely been the greater Mumbai and coastal regions – and even there, a decisive electoral edge was provided by the BJP. Now, that faction has shrunk to what it was at its inception, and that fall, as maps below show, is largely irreversible.

Second, even in the Mumbai-Thane region, the Thackerays’ hold has shrunk markedly from what it was in 2019. A popular 18th century ditty mocking the decline of Mughal control over the subcontinent was: “Sultanat-e-Shah Alam, az Dilli ta Palam” (the reign of Shah Alam extends from Delhi to Palam). Its modern Maharashtrian equivalent would describe Thackerays' territory from Dindoshi to Worli.

Today, the bald truth is that the Thackeray faction does not hold a single seat in Thane, and has abased itself to a few, scattered pockets in south and central Mumbai. What a fall.

Third, the Maharashtra episode is one more proof that dynastic politics doesn’t pay, as it inevitably becomes afflicted at some point of time by the Icarus Syndrome. This cannot be avoided because of a conundrum: soaring ambition is always greater than ability, but such ambitions are unavoidable since that is what entitlement breeds.

Fourth, the Shinde faction’s unceremonious ouster of the party’s founding family now offers a template to those who fret over the decline of the Congress. It is both evidence, and warning, that either a party can survive, or its first family, but not both.

Fifth, and perhaps most importantly, Shinde’s ascent means that the Thackerays will lose control of the prize – Mumbai Corporation – in local body polls scheduled to be held there later this year. No party, which predicated its political existence on the funds that might be drawn from control over India’s financial capital, can avoid terminal wane.

Sixth, on the contrary, the BJP’s ascent to primacy in the Mumbai corporation would be just the fillip it seeks, in the run up to the 2024 general elections. As this writer has maintained, if the two top political prizes in India are Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, then Mumbai is a close third. And already, there are unconfirmed reports of rumblings amongst a large number of Sena corporators in Mumbai and Thane.

Seventh, with this jolt, the Thackeray faction doesn’t just lose the bulk of its relevance in state and Mumbai politics, but at the centre as well. This is because an inevitable third blow is on the cards: an exodus by their parliamentarians in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Such a move is unavoidable, since those Sena MPs know that they will struggle to get re-elected, now that the Sena-BJP vote which returned them is gone.

Eighth, the biggest blow, however, is to Sharad Pawar and his Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). For decades, Pawar had been a prime pole in Maharashtra politics – first in the Congress, and then on his own. But now, with Shinde at the helm, Pawar is on the backfoot, because he knows that the BJP will aggressively work to make further inroads into his bastion of western Maharashtra.

Readers mustn’t forget that this threat is real, and larger than most presume, since the BJP managed to wrest Pandharpur seat from the NCP (supported by the Sena and the Congress), in a byelection in 2021.

Ninth, Shinde’s rebellion also puts the Congress severely on the backfoot. From being by far the overweening political force in Maharashtra for half a century, to fourth today, is a decline which will only further hasten, inexorably, now that the BJP has embarked on a fresh growth phase in the state.

And, tenth, the fact that the Shinde faction broke with Uddhav Thackeray on the issue of Hindutva means that an end-point for secularism has been set in the state. From now on, there will be only two unequivocal poles – one promoting Hindutva, and one stridently against it. (See here for a brilliant exposition of this radical change in Indian politics, by Aravindan Neelakandan).

In conclusion, the Thackerays will probably never come to terms with the oblivion they now face, since the truth is that they brought this upon themselves, by breaking with the BJP after having contested the 2019 assembly elections in alliance with them. Yet no recrimination is possible, because if dharma is theory, and karma is practice, then oblivion is justice.