Maharashtra Vs Gujarat : How The Past Returns To Haunt The Future
BY R.K.MISRA
A satin dress doesn’t necessarily mean clean
undergarments, more so in politics.
As the
soiled Maharashtra ‘power’ linen lands
up at the judicial cleaners for salvage, long
buried fault-lines between the bickering brothers-Maharashtra and
Gujarat- are slated to come alive as a
direct fall-out of the toppling game undertaken to destabilise the Maharashtra
Vikas Agadi(MVA) government of the Shiv
Sena , Nationalist Congress party(NCP) and the Congress.
The first
indication that the surface calm hides a bruised body came to the fore on July 29
with the backlash to Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari’s statement in
Mumbai. He was quoted as saying that if
Gujaratis and Rajasthanis are removed
from the state, especially Mumbai and Thane, it would be left with no
money and would cease to be the financial capital of the country. With
political nerves in Maharashtra running
raw, it hit a festering hurt. A clarification on the next day that the Governor had been misquoted and no hurt
to marathi pride was intended came a tad too late in the face of video clips
that went viral unleashing a strong response from all parties -Shiv Sena, MNS,
NCP, Congress even chief minister Eknath Shinde.
Indian politics consists of the impossible combining with the improbable to
produce the feasible. Thus it is that
backroom parleys and front room froth tend to create a curtain of confusion
over reproachment efforts underway within the fractured Sena to consolidate
itself, then effect sharp shift towards a BJP powered state government and a
NDA aligned Centre. Will such a scenario emerge ? Support for NDA presidential
candidate Droupadi Murmu, billed as the first step, has already been acted upon
by Uddhav Thackarey though there are many a slip between the cup and the lip for
the Agadi is not completely history and the Supreme Court decision to set up a
constitutional bench to judge the issue has perspiration beading many a
power-seeking political brows . Yet, the fate of the Maharashtra government is
not under focus here though the future of its politics surely is, particularly
after Surat in neighbouring Gujarat became the staging area for the Sena
splinter.
Born out of bi-lingual Bombay state, Gujarat and
consequently Maharashtra came into being on May 1,1960 at the end of an intense
fire and brimstone struggle that saw the Marathi and Gujarati speaking
population at loggerheads. The Samyukta Maharashtra movement spearheaded the
demand for a Marathi speaking state with Bombay as the capital. Simultaneously
the Mahagujarat movement pressed for the state of Gujarat for Gujarati speaking
people. The passing of the Bombay reorganization Act,1960 by Parliament saw the bifurcation and
subsequent creation of the two separate entities. However the transition was not as smooth for Gujarat
had laid claim to Bombay and Maharashtra to Dangs though the former remained
with Maharashtra and the latter with Gujarat. A surface calm may have been
restored but a feeling of resentment of sorts still lingers fuelled by gujarati
domination of business in Maharashtra and their perceived allegiance to the
neighbouring state. Mumbai is a city with the fifth largest gujarati speaking
population and Maharashtra is home to the second largest gujarati speaking
numbers in the country.
There has been a
history of strain, bordering on rivalry
between the two communities in Maharashtra. If Bal Thackarey’s Shiv Sena
achieved political adulthood championing Marathi pride, the Gujarati populace,
in fair measure, veered towards the BJP after Congress domination ended.
According to a published report this rivalry was best exemplified in the close
race between the two political parties in the 2017 Mumbai municipal corporation
results. It may be mere coincidence but adds to this narrative when the mantle
of Hindu hriday Samrat(Hindu heart throb) held by late Bal Thackerey became a
coveted reference to Narendra Modi during his chief ministerial stint in
Gujarat. And it is this rub from a sibling that is salting the wounds of the
first family of Shiv Sena and therefrom their cadres .They harbour no doubt
that the Modi-Shah due of ‘neighbourly origin’ are behind this move of
grievously goring the Sena and in the process ensuring that the BJP remains the
sole political heir of hindutva.
To add fuel to flagging fires, Maharashtra Governor
Bhagat Singh Koshiyari inadvertently waded into this emotional quagmire . If anything, his statement will bring to
the fore his political lineage instead of his gubernatorial impartiality and
add to the long harboured suspicions. An RSS veteran, Koshiyari served as the
national vice-president of the BJP and the party’s first state president for
Uttarakhand. To heal a wound you need to stop touching it.
It is no secret
that Prime Minister Modi exercises complete sway over the government and the
party and it is inconceivable that his ‘chanakya’, Amit Shah would make any
move at splitting the Sena without
clearance. The previous attempt by the duo to split the NCP was thwarted by
wily warhorse Sharad Pawar. The way the nuts and bolts of the recent ‘operation
lotus’ were put in place and the element of secrecy and surprise that caught
the sleuthing and policing system of
Maharashtra completely off-guard speaks of a high degree of precision and
planning. The presence of the Surat police commissioner in the Gujarat state
secretariat, days earlier as also the inordinate police presence at the state
border and in the hotel only adds to this belief.
However, it was
the ease with which two Shiv Sena emissaries of Uddhav Thackeray managed to
establish contact with the rebel leader
Eknath Shinde and arrange a conversation that alerted the BJP leadership to the inherent weakness
of Surat being too close to Maharashtra for
comfort and therefore the move to
airlift the rebels to Assam post-haste.
The flight of
the Shiv Sena rebels to Assam draws interesting parallels with a similar
rebellion that was crafted in 1995 against the first BJP government in Gujarat
headed by Keshubhai Patel. Shankersinh Vaghela, a senior BJP leader was the
architect of the rebellion wherein 47 of
the total 121 BJP legislators in a House of 182 had flown
away to Khajuraho by a chartered flight after withdrawing support. Modi was the
organization secretary of the state party and in the truce that was brokered by
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Keshubhai Patel
was replaced by Suresh Mehta as chief
minister and Modi was transferred out of Gujarat. However the truce did not
last and Vaghela came to power as chief minister heading a regional party with
the support of the Congress. Digvijay Singh was the chief minister of Congress-
ruled Madhya Pradesh who had facilitated
the rebels .
If Shah’s
backroom boys have refined the Khajuraho experience to the Surat-Assam levels,
and have strategically killed two birds with one stone pitting Uddhav’s Sena v/s Shinde’s Sena , creating a
heads-i-win,tails-you- lose scenario, the Thackerays seem to have taken a page
out of Modi’s strategy manual in the still evolving Maharashtra manuscript.
Gujarat’s
longest serving chief minister, Modi spent
ten of his over 13 year tenure as chief minister attacking UPA chairman
Mrs Sonia Gandhi, the Nehru family and
the Manmohan Singh- led Congress government as
anti-Gujarat. His entire
political plank entailed Centre-bashing and
cashed-in on the injured innocence of ‘ Gujarati asmita ‘(Gujarati
pride). It won him a bonanza at the hustings and though the total tally of
seats registered a fall ,election on election, but he remained in total command
until he left in 2014 to take over as prime minister.
If push comes to shove, Thackerays intends to
do the same. They have already unveiled the trailer of the film
which they intend to release in the run up to the elections whether it
takes place mid-term or in 2024, the year when State Assembly and Lok Sabha elections
fall due.
Whatever may be
the outcome of the legal tussle in the apex court, Uddhav Thackeray is
presently busy taking stock of his party structure and except for isolated
districts has managed to retain control. His demand for mid -term polls is also significant as is
his call to arms, a la ‘Marathi manoos’( son of the soil).
The Shiv Sainiks
still hold the first family, especially Bal Thackeray in high esteem and an
appeal to injured Marathi pride with veiled references to the role of the two from the neighbouring state who
pulled down their government and sought to damage the legacy of the founder is
expected to yield the same results as a similar appeal to regional pride has
worked wonders for Modi in Gujarat. Galvanising the MVA grouping around ‘Maratha pride’ into a broad-based front in
the run up to the next elections cannot be ruled out. The proof of the pudding
lies in the eating and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections due
later this year will be the first litmus test for all three- Uddhav ,Shinde and
the BJP.
When planning
misfortune for others, remember the past has a way of returning to haunt the
future.
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