New Delhi June 24 2022: Maharashtra, India’s richest state, is facing a political crisis that has jeopardized the existence of the Shiv Sena government in the state.
About 35 members of the Assembly, headed by an influential but rebellious minister named Aknath Shinde, are locked up in a hotel in Guwahati, a city in the northeastern state of Assam, thousands of kilometers from Maharashtra.
Surprisingly, the 35 MLAs belong to the Shiv Sena party which is ruling the state of Maharashtra in a coalition with the Congress and the local National Congress Party (NCP).
Aknath Shinde has been a part of Shiv Sena for decades and claims that he is doing this in the interest of his party. But according to political experts, his uprising has brought the state government to the brink of disaster.
Aknath Shinde claims that he is not parting ways with Shiv Sena and will continue to propagate the Hindu nationalist ideology of Bal Thackeray, the founding leader of his ‘rebel’ ally party, who was Adu Thackeray’s father.
Meanwhile, senior Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Rawat has accused the BJP of being behind the uprising and trying to overthrow his government.
Rejecting the allegations, the BJP termed the crisis as an internal matter of Shiv Sena. Interestingly, BJP president in Maharashtra Chandrakant Patel, who used to predict the fall of the government every week, is now completely silent on the issue.
Maharashtra is one of the largest states in India and that is why it is important for all political parties as Mumbai, the economic capital of India, is located here. Apart from India’s film industry Bollywood, there are many other big industries in the country.
What happens in this state usually affects the politics of the whole country.
An extraordinary political coalition government has been in place since 2019, which included the right-wing Shiv Sena and the Congress, along with the National Congress Party and a few independents.
With the help of this alliance, these parties achieved a target of 144 seats in the 288-member assembly to form a government to block the path of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won the most seats.
When the BJP formed the Maharashtra government after the 2019 elections, it had to resign six days later, admitting that it did not have a majority to run the government.
Significantly, Shiv Sena has sided with the BJP in the past, but the alliance between the two right-wing parties could not be sustained due to differences over power sharing. Although there are ideological similarities between the two Hindu nationalist parties, their relationship remained fraught with problems even before the BJP and Shiv Sena broke ties.
Shiv Sena started out as a party with ethnic and local ideologies, namely the Marathi-speaking party in Mumbai. But as its local vote bank dwindled, Shiv Sena established its identity as a party that existed to protect Hindu interests. Importantly, Shiv Sena’s main electorate was considered anti-Congress.
That is why when Shiv Sena formed an alliance with the Congress, questions were raised about it and it was predicted that this alliance would not last. But Adu Thackeray and his allies have so far faced political crises in one form or another.
According to reports, Shiv Sena minister Aknath Shinde is interested in restoring the alliance with the BJP and wants to include it in the government. If a few more Shiv Sena MLAs join him, he may succeed in overthrowing Adu Thackeray’s government.
How did this crisis start?
The crisis began in a very interesting way. Aknath Shinde suddenly disappeared from the scene when the results of the state’s Legislative Council elections came out on Monday.
In this election, Shiv Sena and Ittehad were expected to win six out of 10 seats and BJP was likely to get four seats. But Shiv Sena got five seats while BJP won the remaining five seats. The news was that Shiv Sena insurgents have sided with the BJP.
According to media reports, Aknath Shinde, accompanied by 11 Shiv Sena MLAs, left for Surat, Gujarat, where the BJP is in power. Prominent BJP face Mehta Kamboj was seen escorting Shiv Sena members to Surat airport.
In response, Adhu Thackeray removed Aknath Shinde from the post of party whip. In response, Aknath Shinde removed Shiv Sena from his Twitter profile and was seen meeting BJP leaders at a hotel in Gujarat.
After a phone conversation with Adhu Thackeray on Tuesday night, Aknath Shinde and his supporters flew to Guwahati, Assam. Here too the BJP government is in place and another BJP leader stayed at the same hotel where the rebel members of Shiv Sena were staying.
According to the Indian Express, sources said the decision to go to Guwahati was taken because Surat is so close to Maharashtra and there was a danger of the rebel members returning.
Two of the MLAs also returned to Maharashtra on Wednesday, where one alleged that they had been “forcibly taken to Surat and admitted to a hospital in protest”. ‘Aknath Shinde’s supporters had misled him.
In India, Aknath Shinde needs the support of 37 MLAs to avoid disqualification under the law for deviating from his party. He has claimed that he has the support of 40 and six independent members of Shiv Sena but this claim could not be independently verified.
On Wednesday night, Shiv Sena chief and Maharashtra Chief Minister Adu Thackeray left the official residence in an emotional speech after appealing to the rebel assembly members to return and talk to them.
When Adu Thackeray left the official residence for his home, hundreds of Shiv Sena workers were present to reassure him of his support despite the rain.
