A satin dress doesn't necessarily mean clean undergarments, more so in politics. As the soiled Maharashtra 'power' linen lands up at the judicial cleaners for salvage, long buried faultlines between the bickering brothers - Maharashtra and Gujarat - are slated to come alive as a direct fall-out of the toppling game undertaken to destabilise the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government of the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress party (NCP) and the Congress.
The first indication that the surface calm hides a bruised body came to the fore on Friday with the backlash to Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari's statement in Mumbai. He was quoted as saying that if Gujaratis and Rajasthanis were removed from the state, especially Mumbai and Thane, it would be left with no money and would cease to be the financial capital of the country. With political nerves in Maharashtra running raw, it hit a festering hurt. The clarification on Saturday that the Governor had been misquoted and no hurt to Marathi pride was intended came a tad too late in the face of video clips that went viral unleashing a strong response from all parties - Shiv Sena, MNS, NCP, Congress, even chief minister Eknath Shinde.
Indian politics consists of the impossible combining with the improbable to produce the feasible. Thus it is that backroom parleys and front room froth tend to create a curtain of confusion over rapprochement efforts underway within the fractured Sena to consolidate itself, then effect a sharp shift towards a BJP-powered state government, and an NDA aligned Centre. Will such a scenario emerge? Support for NDA presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, billed as the first step, has already been acted upon by Uddhav Thackeray. However, there are many a slip between the cup and the lip for the Aghadi is not completely history and the Supreme Court's decision to set up a constitutional bench to judge the issue has perspiration beading many a power-seeking political brow. Yet, the fate of the Maharashtra government is not under focus here though the future of its politics surely is, particularly after Surat in neighbouring Gujarat became the staging area for the Sena splinter.
Born out of bilingual Bombay state, Gujarat and consequently Maharashtra came into being on May 1, 1960, at the end of an intense fire and brimstone struggle that saw the Marathi and Gujarati speaking populations at loggerheads. The Samyukta Maharashtra movement spearheaded the demand for a Marathi-speaking state with Bombay as the capital. Simultaneously the Mahagujarat movement pressed for the state of Gujarat for Gujarati-speaking people. The passing of the Bombay reorganisation Act of 1960 by Parliament saw the bifurcation and subsequent creation of the two separate entities. However, the transition was not as smooth, for Gujarat had laid claim to Bombay and Maharashtra to Dangs though the former remained with Maharashtra and the latter with Gujarat. A surface calm may have been restored, but a feeling of resentment of sorts still lingers fuelled by the Gujarati domination of business in Maharashtra and their perceived allegiance to the neighbouring state. Mumbai is a city with the fifth largest Gujarati speaking population, and Maharashtra is home to the second largest Gujarati speaking number in the country.
There has been a history of strain bordering on the rivalry between the two communities in Maharashtra. If Bal Thackeray's Shiv Sena achieved political adulthood championing Marathi pride, the Gujarati populace, in fair measure, veered towards the BJP after Congress' domination ended. According to a published report, this rivalry was best exemplified in the close race between the two political parties in the 2017 Mumbai Municipal Corporation results. It may be a mere coincidence, but it adds to this narrative when the mantle of Hindu Hriday Samrat (Hindu heartthrob) held by the late Bal Thackeray became a coveted reference to Narendra Modi during his chief ministerial stint in Gujarat. And it is this rub from a sibling that is salting the wounds of the first family of Shiv Sena and, therefrom, their cadres. They harbour no doubt that the Modi-Shah duo of 'neighbourly origin' are behind this move of grievously goring the Sena and, in the process, ensuring that the BJP remains the sole political heir of Hindutva.
To add fuel to flagging fires, Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari inadvertently waded into this emotional quagmire on Friday. If anything, his statement will bring to the fore his political lineage instead of his gubernatorial impartiality and add to the long-harboured suspicions. An RSS veteran, Koshyari served as the national vice-president of the BJP and the party's first state president for Uttarakhand. To heal a wound, you need to stop touching it.
It is no secret that Prime Minister Modi exercises complete sway over the government and the party, and it is inconceivable that his 'Chanakya', Amit Shah, would make any move at splitting the Sena without clearance. The previous attempt by the duo to split the NCP was thwarted by wily warhorse Sharad Pawar. The way the nuts and bolts of the recent 'operation lotus' were put in place and the element of secrecy and surprise that caught the sleuthing and policing system of Maharashtra completely off-guard speaks of a high degree of precision and planning. The presence of the Surat police commissioner in the Gujarat state secretariat days earlier, as also the inordinate police presence at the state border and in the hotel, only adds to this belief.
However, it was the ease with which two Shiv Sena emissaries of Uddhav Thackeray managed to establish contact with the rebel leader Eknath Shinde and arrange a conversation that alerted the BJP leadership to the inherent weakness of Surat being too close to Maharashtra for comfort and therefore the move to airlift the rebels to Assam post-haste.
The flight of the Shiv Sena rebels to Assam draws interesting parallels with a similar rebellion that was crafted in 1995 against the first BJP government in Gujarat headed by Keshubhai Patel. Shankersinh Vaghela, a senior BJP leader, was the architect of the rebellion wherein 47 of the total 121 BJP legislators in a House of 182 had flown away to Khajuraho by a chartered flight after withdrawing support. Modi was the organisation secretary of the state party, and in the truce that was brokered by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Keshubhai Patel was replaced by Suresh Mehta as chief minister, and Modi was transferred out of Gujarat. However, the truce did not last, and Vaghela came to power as the chief minister heading a regional party with the support of the Congress. Digvijay Singh was the chief minister of Congress-ruled Madhya Pradesh, who had facilitated the rebels.
If Shah's backroom boys have refined the Khajuraho experience to the Surat-Assam levels and have strategically killed two birds with one stone, pitting Uddhav's Sena versus Shinde's Sena, creating a 'heads I win, tails you lose' scenario, the Thackerays seem to have taken a page out of Modi's strategy manual in the still evolving Maharashtra manuscript.
Gujarat's longest-serving chief minister, Modi spent ten of his over 13-year tenure as chief minister attacking UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi, the Nehru family and the Manmohan Singh-led Congress government as anti-Gujarat. His entire political plank entailed Centre bashing and cashed-in on the injured innocence of 'Gujarati asmita '(Gujarati pride). It won him a bonanza at the hustings, and though the total tally of seats registered a fall, election on election, he remained in total command until he left in 2014 to take over as prime minister.
If push comes to shove, Thackeray intends to do the same. They have already unveiled the trailer of the film, which they intend to release in the run-up to the elections, whether it takes place mid-term or in 2024, the year when state Assembly and Lok Sabha elections fall due.
Whatever the outcome of the legal tussle in the apex court, Uddhav Thackeray is presently busy taking stock of his party structure and, except for isolated districts, has managed to retain control. His demand for mid-term polls is also significant, as is his call to arms, a la' Marathi manoos' ( son of the soil).
The Shiv Sainiks still hold the first family, especially Bal Thackeray, in high esteem and an appeal to injured Marathi pride with veiled references to the role of the two from the neighbouring state who pulled down their government and sought to damage the legacy of the founder is expected to yield the same results as a similar appeal to regional pride has worked wonders for Modi in Gujarat. Galvanising the MVA grouping around 'Maratha pride' into a broad-based front in the run-up to the next elections cannot be ruled out. The proof of the pudding lies in the eating, and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections due later this year will be the first litmus test for all three - Uddhav, Shinde and the BJP. When planning misfortune for others, remember the past has a way of returning to haunt the future.
(R K Misra is a senior journalist based in Ahmedabad)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.