The Takeover That Wasn’t

Why Raj could not snatch the Shiv Sena away from Uddhav after Bal Thackeray’s death

MUMBAI ~ When Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray died last year, many Mumbaikars expected that his nephew Raj Thackeray, chief of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), would take over the party he had split apart from. Considered a mirror image of his uncle in temperament, manner and even looks (with allowances for the age difference), Raj was widely seen as a natural inheritor of the Sena founder’s political legacy. All he had to do, some felt, was snap his fingers for Sainiks to take to the streets in his support and force the Thackeray pretender Uddhav, Bal’s son, to make way for the real defender of the Marathi manoos.

Now, nine months after the Sena founder’s death, Raj has remained just that, a mirror image, while Uddhav has taken firm control of the party. Raj has unexpectedly been floundering in politics, picking up an odd issue here or there, but largely staying quiet—possibly disappointed that the clamour he had expected among Sainiks for his leadership did not begin. For all his aggression, the Sainiks seem to have settled for Uddhav’s far-less-public style of politics.

Though there had been past indications that Raj would make a bid to take over the Shiv Sena, few are willing to bet on such an event now. It is no secret that senior Sena leaders who have been unhappy with Uddhav’s approach feel let down by this. Raj’s own attitude towards his cousin, which has been under close watch, suggests little hostility.

Meanwhile Uddhav, who has developed a ‘political cunningness’ in recent months, as many say, has used the time to his advantage. He has been moving across Maharashtra, interacting with partymen in an effort to consolidate his position as their leader. While Raj remains ensconced within the confines of his Shivaji Park residence, Uddhav’s outreach effort has sent Sainiks a signal that he intends leading the party with all he’s got. It has also kept an exodus from the Sena to the MNS from materialising. Indeed, switchovers have been so few that Uddhav’s detractors are perplexed. Those close to both cousins say that this in itself amounts to an endorsement of Uddhav’s leadership by Sainiks at large.

The chasm between the cousins, however, is thought to have widened. In the past few months, both have kept away from each other, mimimising interaction. Uddhav may lack the showmanship of Raj on public platforms, but his behind-the-scenes moves appear to have worked. The months since Bal Thackeray’s death have seen Uddhav move away from the shadow of his father and emerge his own man. Comparisons are no longer drawn with his late father or even with his cousin. This, his admirers say, has been achieved with subtlety.

There is also talk that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who is set to lead the Sena ally BJP to the Lok Sabha polls, has renewed efforts to bring Uddhav and Raj together again. As the rationale goes, the BJP would want a united Sena as its ally. But this has been denied by Gopinath Munde, the senior leader in charge of the BJP campaign in Maharashtra. The mood within the state BJP is upbeat, and a patch up between the Thackeray cousins could complicate already vexed relations with the Sena, an ally of over two decades, over local issues of seat sharing.

Ego and ambition seem to be the big stumbling blocks between the cousins that make it hard for them to join forces. Unlike the late Sena chief who believed in remote-controlling his men, Uddhav and Raj are both keen on wielding direct power. Both see themselves as Maharashtra CM and neither is willing to play second fiddle to the other. Even their ideas and agendas appear to differ. All of this means that a merger of the Shiv Sena and MNS, or even an electoral alliance, is almost impossible.

While the Thackeray cousins have differences, in electoral terms their appeals overlap. In fact, after Bal Thackeray’s demise, many expected Raj to run away with the Sena’s vote bank. However, despite his early playing to the Marathi manoos gallery after he broke away to form the MNS, Raj has been reluctant to make further efforts. Apart from meeting partymen, Uddhav has also been on a mission to endear himself to Mumbaikars on civic issues. His recent public apology to the city for potholed roads has earned him brownie points. The Shiv Sena has run the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation for two decades.

The Sena’s clout in Mumbai, while still significant on account of Maharashtrian support, has been loosening in recent years as the city’s population has grown more diverse. In the context of this trend, a split of the manoos voter base between the Sena and MNS has meant a weakening of both parties. Before his death, Thackeray had called Uddhav and Raj and asked them to come together and form a single political entity in the interests of sons-of-the-soil. On cue, Chandumama Vaidya, the maternal uncle of Uddhav and Raj Thackeray, had pledged to fulfill that dream of his late brother-in-law. As the brother of Meenatai and Kantatai, the mothers of the cousins, Vaidya was seen as the right man for the task. However, he seems to have given up his efforts.

Ambitious wives on both sides are said to be working to ensure that the cousins do not patch up. Uddhav’s wife Rashmi and Raj’s wife Sharmila, it is said, will never allow a merger as they see larger independent roles for themselves in the state’s power structure.

Sources say that Uddhav is keen on rebranding the Sena with a strong infusion of young blood. The old guard so central to his father’s planning will find no role in Uddhav’s Shiv Sena. The political careers of Manohar Joshi, Subhash Desai and a host of senior leaders are over now, as Uddhav puts his own team in place. His son Aditya has a role as well and is playing a kind of party mascot to attract the youth.

The MNS chief, in contrast, lacks his cousin’s organisational skills. Even seven years after the MNS was set up, the party’s physical presence in the state remains sparse. He has only concentrated on its growth in Mumbai and Nasik. Though Raj’s blueprint for his party included a network of shakhas along the lines of the Shiv Sena’s, no move has been made in that direction. This has stunted the party’s expansion plan and has in some places even seen Sainik switchovers return to their original Sena. Raj has done little about it. Given current trends, the MNS leader’s habit of taking extended breaks from interactions with his activists may prove to be his undoing.

As polls approach, if both the Shiv Sena and MNS continue to vie for the same political space and constituents, then clashes between the two parties may be imminent. In the past, Sainik violence has been along ideological fractures. From the mid 60s to the late 80s, for example, the Shiv Sena engaged the state’s Communists in street battles, with South Indians occasional targets of the party’s wrath. As the BJP’s Rama Janmabhoomi campaign gained pace, Bal Thackeray’s focus shifted to Mumbai’s Muslims, a phase that saw bloody riots in the city in late 1992 and early 1993.

With that legacy of strongarm politics, the Shiv Sena—named after the 17th century ruler Shivaji—has a reputation that unsettles not just minorities but also secularists of all kind. Uddhav’s agenda, however, has signalled something of a retreat from that toxic mix of identity and agitational politics of the past, with intimidatory tactics replaced with a relatively moderate outlook.

Under Uddhav, the Sena has not spouted much Marathi manoos rhetoric, though the response of Sainiks to a harmless tweet by Shobhaa De recently suggests that their old attitudes are as hard as ever. “Maharashtra is a raging fire, don’t play with it,” Uddhav had told the media, reacting to De’s ‘why not?’ on statehood for Mumbai, and Sainiks turned up at De’s doorstep to protest.

Sainik-turned-Congressman Narayan Rane’s son Nitesh had some nasty words for De, too, but the angriest response was from Raj Thackeray, who told De that separating Mumbai from Maharashtra was not as easy as getting a divorce. Since Sainiks had already beaten the MNS to De’s door, Raj’s brigade refrained from street protests. Yet, the MNS is the likelier of the two parties to resort to threats and ultimatums in the manner of the Sena of old. This would be apiece with Raj’s attempt to hijack the Shiv Sena’s identity politics, the kind that wants North Indian migrants denied jobs in Mumbai, Marathi films given an edge over Hindi films, Marathi made compulsory as the language in use by the government, civic offices and courts, not to mention school curricula. For all of Raj’s attempts to hijack his uncle’s party, however, it is now clear that it will always remain a coup bid, not a takeover. And the mirror image will stay just that—an image.

About The Author

Haima Deshpande