Mumbai Four months after chief minister Eknath Shinde split the Shiv Sena and formed the government with the help of the BJP, the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) seems to have regrouped and is getting ready to intensify its attack on the ruling combine. Stepping up its attack on the government over controversies ranging from “insults” to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj to the Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute issue, the MVA announced a massive protest march in the city on December 17 against the “attempts to undermine Maharashtra’s pride”.
This march, the first united protest of the MVA after losing power in June, will be from Byculla Zoo to Azad Maidan and is expected to be a show of strength of the opposition coalition. The announcement was made by former chief minister and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray along with senior NCP-Congress leaders after a meeting at the residence of opposition leader Ajit Pawar.
The three opposition parties, which took time to recover after losing power, seem to have decided to stick together and launch an offensive against the Shinde-Fadnavis government ahead of the civic and district council polls in the state. For the past few weeks, thus, the government has been targeted on a series of issues: the flight of investment to other states, especially Gujarat; controversial statements on Maratha king Shivaji by Maharashtra governor B S Koshyari and other BJP leaders; and the aggression exhibited by neighbouring Karnataka over the border dispute between the two states.
Koshyari’s remarks on King Shivaji, particularly, have not gone down well with the Maratha community, which is already irked after the Supreme Court set aside the quota given to it in government jobs and education. Wary of the ire of the community, the BJP-led central government is considering replacing Koshyari. However, the Opposition, which demanded his ouster, has made it clear that its march will not be cancelled even if Koshyari is removed from his post by December 17.
“We respect the governor’s post but this person has disrespected Chhatrapati Shivaji, Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule, and tried to divide citizens by talking about Gujaratis and Rajasthanis in Mumbai and Thane,” Thackeray said.
The decision to have the protest march was arrived at after Thackeray drove to ‘Devgiri’, Pawar’s official residence, on Monday evening and joined the meeting of MVA leaders, including state NCP chief Jayant Patil and Congress leaders Balasaheb Thorat and Ashok Chavan. Following the meeting, Thackeray made the announcement. “This is just the beginning and we will intensify our agitation in future if corrective measures are not taken by the state government,” he said, adding that the MVA was here to stay, and that it was not formed only for the sake of grabbing power.
Thackeray once again brought up the Opposition’s ire regarding projects that were to come to Maharashtra going to Gujarat. “This was to score brownie points with constituents in the Gujarat assembly polls,” he said. “Now that the Karnataka polls are also approaching, will villages from Maharashtra be taken in order to score an electoral victory?” Thackeray’s statement had reference to Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai’s recent statement that his government was seriously considering including 40 villages from Jat tehsil (in Maharashtra’s Sangli district) in Karnataka.
Ajit Pawar remarked that border disputes were not new to Maharashtra, but villages sharing borders with neighbouring states such as Karnataka, Telangana and Gujarat had never before demanded to be included in other states. “This is happening for the first time,” he said. “A major reason is that the budgetary allocations made by the MVA government for development works have been unnecessarily stayed by this government.”
The MVA is now looking at expanding its base. Thackeray said discussions were on with Prakash Ambedkar to bring his Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi into the MVA fold. The MVA partners will also hold meetings with smaller parties such as the Samajwadi Party, the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and the Peasants and Workers Party of India on December 8 to bring them together for the protest against the Shinde-Fadnavis government.
Reacting to the morcha declared by the opposition parties, chief minister Shinde took an indirect jibe at Thackeray. “After I became CM, some people have come out of their residences,” he said. “Yesterday, deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and I took a test drive on the Samruddhi Mahamarg (Mumbai-Nagpur Super Communication Expressway). Our work is before the people. But it is good that other people are also coming on the roads now.”
