Mumbai: The rift between parties of the ruling coalition in Maharashtra — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena — has widened following the latter’s aggressive stand against Pakistani visitors to Mumbai.
It is now likely that the Sena will go it alone in the forthcoming Kalyan-Dombivili Municipal Corporation (KDMC) elections.
The two oldest allies in the state went it alone in the state assembly elections held last year but the Sena later joined the government, apart from backing the BJP-led government at the Centre earlier.
While it got a lone union cabinet minister, Anant Geete, with an insignificant role in the union government, even at the state level it did not bag key portfolios including Home now held by the BJP.
The Sena has been trying to flex its muscles on several fronts — a string of differences on issues including drought, land acquisition, the meat ban during the Jain festival and recently the Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali concert’s cancellation and blackening the face of Sudheendra Kulkarni, head of Observer Research Foundation, who had invited former Pakistani former minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri for the launch of book Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove.
Kulkarni was formerly an aide of BJP stalwarts L.K. Advani and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Even during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Mumbai, most of the Sena’s top leadership were absent since Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray was not given a formal invitation.
Though Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut insisted on Monday that the attack on Kulkarni was not political, it is widely seen as a political issue as the party with a lesser clout these days wants to be seen as a nationalistic one and the protector of the Hindutva cause.
With elections in municipal corporations of some major cities of Maharashtra including Mumbai, which has the richest civic body in the country, the Sena has to project itself to keep its voter base as against the BJP.
Therefore, going alone in Kalyan and Dombivili, which are satellite towns adjacent to Mumbai, where the elections will be held on November 1 would make sense. The KDMC is currently run by the Sena-BJP alliance but the Sena now wants to contest all 122 seats on its own.
It would also be an embarrassment for both parties to come together again though in politics nothing can be ruled out. However, the present state of affairs is such that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s strong disapproval of what the Sena activists did to Kulkarni has not gone down well. Fadnavis said the Sena’s action had brought disrepute to the state. “We cannot endorse Kasuri, but can’t let our state turn into a banana republic. The rule of law has prevailed.” It was heavy security at the evening function on Monday that prevented any violent incident happening again.
Meanwhile, Thackeray in turn made a derisive retaliation by felicitating the six Sena activists who were arrested after they had smeared black paint on Kulkarni’s face on Monday. All six are out on bail.
An editorial in Saamna, Sena’s party newspaper, attacked Kulkarni and compared him to the 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab. It said, “Sudheendra Kulkarni proudly showed off his black face and his shamelessness. Patriots blackened the face of Pakistan’s chamchas (sycophants).”