Mumbai: The growing influence of Shiv Sena’s young turks led by the woke and urbane Aaditya Thackeray and their efforts to assert themselves often at the cost of the party’s old guard is one of the main factors that led to four-term Sena legislator Eknath Shinde’s rebellion.
Shinde, 58, is said to be upset at a group of functionaries of the Yuva Sena, the party’s youth wing led by Aaditya, for threatening his position as the effective No 2.
A Sena leader, who did not wish to be named, said that Shinde resented the growing influence of Yuva Sena leaders many of whom hail from an elite socio-economic background. However, the majority of the party’s middle-rung leaders as well as its functionaries are from modest blue-collar, working-class backgrounds.
Shinde started off as a labour leader in the party and was at the forefront of several Sena agitations in the 1980s. He rose through the ranks and from a shakha pramukh, he became leader of the house in the Thane Municipal Corporation in 2001. He won his first assembly polls from Kopri Panchpakhadi in 2004, and hasn’t lost the seat since then. Shinde pledges allegiance to Sena founder Bal Thackeray and the late Anand Dighe, one of the party’s most popular leaders from Thane. He would have found his ambitions stymied with the rise of 34-year-old Aaditya, who quite likely might have been his father’s CM pick in the future.
Aaditya’s maternal cousin Varun Sardesai is the secretary of the Yuva Sena, and has taken the initiative to organize street-level protests such as those outside the residence of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union minister Narayan Rane, as well as over independent law-makers Navneet and Ravi Rana, who recently challenged Sena’s Hindutva credentials. Sardesai and Yuva Sena leaders also played a role in plotting the strategies and arranging the logistics for the Rajya Sabha and council polls held earlier this month. This may have irked party veterans further.
The upcoming elections to local bodies could also have triggered tensions as Aaditya was insistent on the Yuva Sena cadre to get a sizeable share of party tickets.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s keenness for a younger, assertive leadership to take charge, coupled with his own inaccessibility to his party functionaries, as well as a growing intractability of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — one of Sena’s allies in the coalition government — also caused widespread discontent among other Sena leaders and functionaries.
“There are many aspects to this episode,” said another Shinde loyalist, hinting that Shinde’s ambitions for himself, and his son, Shrikant, a Lok Sabha parliamentarian from Kalyan, also played a part in his estrangement from the party.
“This (revolt) was not unexpected. It was just the way in which it was executed and the timing (that came as a surprise),” said a Shinde supporter. He claimed that over the past few months, several differences of opinion had cropped up between Shinde and the Thackerays. Shinde was also reportedly irked over what he perceived as interference by the Thackeray family as well as other NCP ministers. Yuva Sena functionaries too, took an active interest in Shinde’s departments, especially in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which is under the Urban Development department. Besides this one, the legislator also holds the charge of the Public Works (public undertakings) department.
The old guard was rankled by the decision to nominate NCP defector Sachin Ahir to the state legislative council instead of another party loyalist. Ahir joined the Shiv Sena in 2019, which ensured Aaditya’s win from the Worli constituency that Ahir had represented in the past. Sainiks also pointed to the fact that Worli had three legislators—Aaditya, the MLA, as well as Sunil Shinde and Ahir, both of whom are MLCs.
Ahir replaced incumbent industries minister Subhash Desai in the upper house of the legislature. Shinde would have been concerned over Aaditya taking over Desai’s portfolio which would have boosted his profile both in the party and the government.
“It is evident that Aaditya was being groomed for taking on the role of party leader. He was seen as someone who learnt the ropes fast when it came to administrative matters. Aaditya’s suave, urbane image would have brought in the cosmopolitan voter. This is what led the BJP to relentlessly attack Aaditya as well as the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. It is evident that his rise rankled some in the old guard who may have felt uncomfortable reporting to him,” a Sena party cadre member said.