A day after he rubbed the ruling ally BJP the wrong way by sharing space with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a full-page advertisement and claiming that he was ahead of his deputy Devendra Fadnavis in the chief ministerial race for the 2024 Assembly polls, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde of the Shiv Sena on Wednesday resorted to a “damage-control” exercise by giving due credit to Fadnavis and other ruling alliance leaders in another full-page ad.
Having ticked off his party’s ally BJP in Maharashtra through the “Rashtramadhe Modi, Maharashtraath Shinde” (Modi for India, Shinde for Maharashtra) advertisement published in many local newspapers on Tuesday, Shinde sought to make amends by putting up another ad that showed him and a grinning Fadnavis waving at people. Unlike Tuesday’s advertisement that had only the photographs of just Modi and Shinde, Wednesday’s ad carried the photographs of other BJP-Sena leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah and late Shiv Sena leaders Balasaheb Thackeray, as well as his own “political guru” Anand Dighe.
Wednesday’s ad carried the symbols of both the Shiv Sena’s “Bow-and-Arrow” and the BJP’s “Lotus,” which were missing in Tuesday’s advertisement. The latest ad carried punchlines saying “People’s choice only for Shiv Sena-BJP alliance” and “We bow our heads to the people, Long Live Maharashtra.”
Tuesday’s ad blitzkrieg, unleashed to project himself as the chief ministerial material for the 2024 Assembly polls, ignoring the claims of Fadnavis for the top post in the 2024 state Assembly polls, boomeranged on Shinde as the BJP leaders picked holes in the data of the pre-polls survey conducted by a television channel and said the data relating to him (Shinde) came mainly from his home district of Thane.
Tuesday’s development had come less than a fortnight after Shinde — who met Union Home Minister Amit Shah along with Deputy Chief Minister Fadnavis in New Delhi on June 4 — claimed that the Shiv Sena led by him and the BJP would contest all the forthcoming elections — Lok Sabha, State Assembly, and local body polls — all together on a development plank.
In Tuesday’s advertisement, the ruling Shiv Sena had quoted an election survey and said that, as per the survey done for the chief minister’s post, 26.1 percent of people in Maharashtra “desire” Shinde to be the next chief minister of the state, while 23.2 percent of the people “wish” to see Fadnavis as the next CM.
“Thus, it is an undeniable proof that 49.3% of the people of Maharashtra wish to see a strong alliance between the BJP and Shiv Sena for their state’s leadership,” the advertisement added.
Interestingly enough, the Sena advertisement had sought to sell the concept of “Modi for India, Shinde for Maharashtra. The dream team is loved by all.”
The initial paragraphs of the advertisements thus: “The commendable teamwork of Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi & Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has secured the highest position in Maharashtra through their recent welfare schemes.”
“According to the election surveys, 30.2% of citizens of Maharashtra prefer BJP, while 16.2% of citizens of Maharashtra prefer the Shiv Sena (led by Eknath Shinde). These numbers show that a total of 46.4% of people of Maharashtra trust the BJP & Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena alliance for the development of the state.”
Understandably enough, the BJP said that the state BJP leadership was miffed with Shinde for going all out to project himself as the chief ministerial candidate for the 2024 Assembly while undermining the claims of Fadnavis for the top post in the state.
It may be recalled that the then Opposition BJP had joined hands with Shinde, then a senior Shiv Sena leader, who rebelled against the then chief minister and Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, walked out of the party along with 40-odd MLAs in June 2022, leading to the collapse of the government Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), a grand alliance comprising Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress.
Given that Shinde had played a bigger role than it, the BJP let Shinde become the chief minister of Maharashtra, while it made its own leader Fadnavis the deputy chief minister of the state – much to the discomfort of the latter who was the chief minister of the state for five years from October 31, 2014, to November 12, 2019.
The Shinde advertisement has resulted in strains in the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP alliance in the state. Given its electoral strength, the ruling BJP is not expected to let Shinde play the role of a dominant partner in the 2024 State Assembly polls.
In the 2019 State Assembly when it contested in alliance with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, the BJP had polled 25.75 percent of votes, while the Uddhav-led Sena had polled 16.41 percent of votes. Similarly, in the earlier 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had polled 27.84 percent of votes, while the Uddhav-led Shiv Sena had mustered 23.5 percent of votes.