Mumbai: In 2019, the Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received a rude shock, when despite getting 105 seats in the assembly elections (in a 288-member House), they couldn’t form the government. Their ally of nearly 30 years, Shiv Sena, snapped ties and joined hands with new partners — the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and the Congress.
A hasty attempt at forming the government with NCP’s Ajit Pawar — the party supremo’s nephew — failed and since then, the BJP has changed its strategy: instead of trying to pull down the coalition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, it has chosen to corner the government led by Sena chief, Uddhav Thackeray.
Right from the issue of reservation to Marathas and Other Backward Classes (OBC) to unearthing alleged corruption cases pertaining to ruling party leaders, BJP ensured that it remained in the news — and in the minds of the electorate — consistently.
“The MVA government has failed in delivering and was busy only in making announcements. CM Thackeray in three consecutive budgets announced an incentive of ₹50,000 to the farmers who pay off their crop loans regularly, but no action has been taken as yet. There are many such announcements made in the legislature that have still to be fulfilled. This has been happening because CM Thackeray was unwillingly steering the government. He was never interested, and he himself has said this on multiple occasions, to lead the state government. We have been doing our work in opposition,” senior BJP leader and former state minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said.
The BJP’s offensive was spearheaded by leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis, and their main weapon has been allegations of corruption.
During the assembly session in March 2021, he demanded the arrest of assistant inspector of police Sachin Vaze in the murder of Thane trader, Mansukh Hiran. Hiran’s car was found outside Mukesh Ambani’s house, Antalia, laden with explosives on February 25; the 48-year-old was found murdered 10 days later. It was this revelation that set the ball rolling: the Centre sent in a team from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) which took over the probe from the Maharashtra police, and eventually arrested Vaze for being the alleged mastermind of the plot to plant explosives and murder Hiran. But the controversy didn’t end there. In March, former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh wrote an open letter to the CM and other top officials of the state, alleging that the then home minister Anil Deshmukh ran an extortion racket of ₹100 crore (and allegedly depended on Vaze to bring the money in). Deshmukh resigned in April after the Bombay HC allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the matter.
Around the same time as Singh’s letter was making waves, Fadnavis held a press conference and referred to a report by former State Intelligence Department (SID) commissioner Rashmi Shukla, which pointed to a cash-for-transfer scam between politicians and police officers. The state government in turn conducted an inquiry and found that the report was created without permission from seniors, and in turn started an investigation into what it called “illegal” phone tapping.
The year 2021 will certainly be remembered as one of breathless trading of allegations: in November, Fadnavis claimed that state minister Nawab Malik had made a property deal with people with connections to Dawood Ibrahim. The Enforcement Directorate is conducting a probe in the matter; in February, Malik was arrested under charges of money-laundering case.
More recently, in the budget session this year, Fadnavis presented 28 pen drives to “expose” police officers and ruling party leaders for their involvement in what he called a conspiracy to defame BJP leaders.
Reservation row
Last March, after the Supreme Court struck down 27% political reservation accorded to OBC candidates in local bodies, the BJP worked hard to create a perception that reservation to Marathas and OBCs were struck down because of the government’s inefficiency.
This may not have necessarily succeeded as the government’s attempts at restoring reservation were there for all to see — the Centre refused to share the caste census data; the SC struck down the state’s ordinances, and ordered the state election commission (SEC) to go ahead with its schedule and renotify OBC seats as general category ones; the backward classes commission report submitted in January was rejected by the court; and now, a new commission tasked to collect empirical data on OBC populations is expected to submit its report in March.
“Undoubtedly, the BJP has kept the MVA government on tenterhooks in the first half of its term. It ensured every tactic from traditional ones like attacking policies and failures, to cunning political means such as fanning the opponent elements to stand against the government and using the central agencies. It has badly affected the efficiency of the state government as the leadership is busy in countering the opposition’s attack. Similarly it tented the ruling parties by exposing corruption cases against them. This has taken a toll on the image of the three ruling parties,” said a leader from the Shiv Sena who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The leader however said that, however, the attack was in a way counter-productive and compelled the three ruling parties to stick together. “The fierce attack by the BJP on the ruling parties knowingly or unknowingly ensured that the three parties stay united, albeit out of compulsion. Secondly, it also created a picture that the BJP was doing it out of desperation for power. It has helped us in generating sympathy for us. At national level, the popularity of prime minister Narendra Modi may well be intact, but in Maharashtra, that is not the case for the leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis,” the leader said, requesting anonymity.
Local polls
The BJP performed well on the electoral front by winning a sizable chunk in the local body polls held late last year and early this year and by bagging Pandharpur bypoll last year, taking their tally up to 106 in the assembly.
But the big test for all parties is the upcoming local body polls, which are being seen as an Assembly poll redux as almost 80% of the population of the state will be placing their votes. The BJP has posed a tough challenge before ruling parties in cities like Mumbai, Pune and Navi Mumbai.
“It is true that we thought the MVA will collapse due to the infighting within the three ruling parties over various issues including sharing of power. After the failed attempt of forming a government with a section of NCP and strained relations with Shiv Sena, the possibility of joining with either with has vanished. We have now decided to concentrate on aiming to gain power on our own. The forthcoming local body elections will be a litmus test for us and will give us a sense about the public mood for the assembly polls in 2024,” said a BJP leader who did not wish to be quoted.
The leader admitted that some of the party’s attempts to corner the Thackeray government backfired. “Our support to advocate Gunratna Sadavarte and his wife was an open secret and did not go down well with the general public, especially after the MSRTC workers attacked NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s house [on April 8]. The excessive use of the central agencies against ruling party leaders and especially for the action against the cooperative societies and sugar factories may go against us. It seems to have created the perception that we are doing this out of desperation for power,” he said.
A strike by employees of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) which began in October 2021 and ended in March, was led by Sadavarte, who was arrested by the Mumbai police for allegedly conspiring an attack on Pawar’s South Mumbai residence. During his addresses to protesting MSRTC workers, Sadavarte thanked BJP leaders Devendra Fadnavis and Chandrakant Patil for their support, prompting MVA party leaders to allege that Sadavarte had the tacit support of the opposition party. BJP leaders however condemned the attack.
When asked about the plans for the next two and half years, Mungantiwar said, “BJP never works to win elections or grab power. We work for the people and their welfare and with the foresight to see BJP’s prime minister leading the nation when it completes 100 years in 2047. Winning elections has never been our priority and that is the reason we could dislodge the Congress from 20 states and poll more than 50% votes in 17 states. In Maharashtra too we have been working for the welfare of the people.”
Political analyst Hemant Desai said, “The BJP fared well as the opposition party and kept MVA government under continuous pressure. Fadnavis’s performance as leader of opposition and head of the state unit of the party has been very good. He gave programmes to the party and made sure that the workers and leaders are seen in public domain. He pushed the MVA to walls on many occasions. Having said this, one should also admit that the party has been perceived to be desperate for power because of various reasons including the overuse of central agencies. I don’t think this or the over exposure on media platforms has been taken positively by the people.”
“I think the BJP’s immediate aim will be to win maximum local bodies later this year and set the ground for the Assembly polls in 2024. They will attack the MVA and the ruling parties, to defame them for corruption and their poor performance. The central agencies will be utilised to the maximum extent in this attempt,” Desai said.
