Shinde, Vij, Meena: Here's How BJP Managed Dissenting Voices In Three States—For Now

Dissent within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led governments came out in the open recently in three states—Rajasthan, Haryana and Maharashtra.

In Maharashtra, it was Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde who allegedly tried to run a 'parallel government', while in Rajasthan and Haryana, Ministers in the governments, Kirodi Lal Meena and Anil Vij, respectively, criticised their own governments publicly.

All three leaders are believed to have been dissatisfied since the formation of their respective governments because of leadership change and have expressed dissent earlier as well on several occasions.

However, the difference this time was that instead of ignoring these dissenting voices, the BJP dealt with them in suitable ways to prevent them from causing any harm to the party or the government.

Maharashtra

Shinde was the Chief Minister (CM) of Maharashtra for over two years in the erstwhile Mahayuti government, which was formed in 2022 after a Shinde-led faction of Shiv Sena extended support to the BJP. Thus, it was a natural choice for the BJP to appoint Shinde as the CM.

However, in the November 2024 assembly elections, BJP won 132 seats, much more than the total of its allies as Shiv Sena won 57 seats and Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 41 seats, making it suitable for staking claim over the CM chair.

After long deliberations, it was decided to appoint Devendra Fadnavis as CM, who earlier served as Maharashtra CM from 2014 to 2019 and after much reluctance, Shinde joined the Fadnavis government as Deputy CM.

However, Shinde was too keen to get the Home Ministry, which Fadnavis refused to leave and Shinde could get only the Housing, Urban Development and Public Works departments, sowing the seeds of discontent.

Since then, Shinde has skipped various meetings called by CM Fadnavis, even when the departments held by him were on the agenda and did not even go to Delhi in December 2024 to discuss portfolios and ministerial berths.

Apart from skipping meetings, Shinde also tried to run a parallel setup. For instance, Shinde skipped a meeting of the Nashik Metropolitan Region Development Authority chaired by Fadnavis, where Nashik Kumbh was discussed and a couple of days later, held a separate review meeting for the 2027 Kumbh in Nashik.

Similarly, Shinde decided to set up a medical aid cell at Mantralaya despite the existence of the Chief Minister's Relief Fund (CMRF). However, this move was defended by both Fadnavis and Shinde.

Fadnavis said that when he was the Deputy CM, he also ran a similar cell and Shinde defended by saying that instead of a competitive setup, this cell is to enhance service delivery and aid the CMRF.

Since both leaders have denied a rift within Mahayuti or a 'cold war', it may be assumed that Shinde is only flexing those muscles that the BJP is allowing him to and an understanding still exists between him and Fadnavis.

For reference, a similar episode was observed in Uttar Pradesh after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections where Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya started flexing muscles and skipping Cabinet meetings but the BJP ecosystem prevented him from going any further.

Similarly, the BJP appears capable of managing Shinde's ambitions, and only allows power posturing of leaders to satisfy their egos.

Haryana

A similar thing was seen in Haryana, where Minister Anil Vij was allowed to express dissent and even level allegations that there were attempts to defeat him in the October 2024 elections, but when these accusations crossed the line, the BJP served him a show-cause notice.

Vij was the Home Minister of Haryana in the Manohar Lal Khattar government. However, when Khattar was replaced by Nayab Saini in March 2024, Vij felt insulted by being 'surpassed' despite being the 'senior-most' leader of the BJP in the state.

Thus, Vij maintained a distance from the Saini government and continued to focus only on his Ambala Cantonment assembly constituency, which he won for the seventh time in the October 2024 assembly elections.

Given his seniority and influence over the Ambala division and Punjabi voters in the state, Vij was offered a Cabinet berth with Energy, Transport and Labour portfolios. But that does not seem to satisfy him.

Vij has assumed an aggressive position against CM Saini and Haryana BJP president Mohan Lal Badoli. When Badoli was accused of being involved in a gang rape in Himachal Pradesh, Vij was the only BJP leader to demand his resignation.

Vij has also criticised Saini by accusing him of not coming down from his 'udan khatola (flying chariot)' since he became the CM and alleged that officials do not listen to him or other MPs and MLAs under CM's influence.

Not only this, Vij has also linked Saini to an alleged conspiracy to defeat him in the assembly election. He said that an Independent who ran against him in Ambala Cantt and CM Saini have common friends.

Since these allegations were levelled during the election campaign in neighbouring Delhi, the BJP issued a show-cause notice to Vij, accusing him of indiscipline and damaging the party's prospects.

A week after this notice, Vij's stance appears to have changed as he praised CM Saini and said, "There's not a single day when the CM does not announce anything for the development of the state and the well-being of its people."

This change could be achieved by the carrot-and-stick approach of the BJP. While the notice was the stick, the BJP allowing Vij's influence over the candidate selection for urban local body polls was the carrot.

CM Saini has also been quite accommodating of Vij and even after the latter's criticisms, the former said that being a senior leader, Vij has the right to criticise and necessary actions will be taken on his complaints. A few officers were also transferred after Vij's complaint.

Rajasthan

The BJP has shown a similar accommodating approach for another senior rogue leader in Rajasthan, Kirodi Lal Meena. Meena too has been upset since Vasundhara Raje, to whom he is considered close, was bypassed and Bhajan Lal Sharma was appointed as the CM.

However, Meena was accommodated by offering a Cabinet berth with the Agriculture portfolio. The truce lasted until the 2024 Lok Sabha election, where BJP lost in Meena's stronghold Dausa and Meena blamed it on the betrayal by fellow party leaders.

Meena even resigned from the post of Minister. However, his resignation was never accepted. Meanwhile, Meena continued speaking against his own government on various issues, including the irregularities in the Sub-Inspector recruitment exam and even got a case registered against him.

Meena's rebellion grew after his brother lost in the Dausa assembly bypoll in November 2024. He started criticising the BJP government publicly and alleged that the government is not working on those issues for which the people chose the BJP to replace Congress in the 2023 assembly elections.

The BJP allowed these criticisms and Sharma even extended warm greetings to Meena on several occasions to pacify the rebellious leader. But after serious allegations of phone-tapping, the party served Meena a show-cause notice.

In an address on 5 February, Meena alleged that like the Ashok Gehlot government, the Sharma government is also tapping the phones of its ministers and has deployed the Crime Investigation Department (CID) for snooping on them.

The allegations gave ammunition to the opposition Congress, which created a ruckus in the assembly over the issue and demanded clarification from the CM. Now, Sharma is set to give clarification in the assembly this week.

Meanwhile, Meena has retracted his statement and said that his statement was taken in a different context and he did not mean to allege phone tapping. This happened only after a show-cause notice was served last week.

The above three instances signal that while the BJP gives a long rope to senior leaders who express dissent, the party leadership also knows when and how to tighten the ship when dissent starts hurting the government.

While Meena and Vij were reined to follow the party line through notices, Shinde is being managed through an apparent understanding with Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis.

However, all these measures do not guarantee that these leaders will not take to rebellious stances in the future. Watch this space for the analysis of the BJP's handling of these potential rebellions.