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Many thought that the Shiv Sena’s strength would erode gradually after the death of its founder Bal Thackeray who held the party together and wielded considerable clout over its rank and file. However, three and a half years after the Sena chief’s death, the Sena has not withered as feared, but is in a much stronger position that it was at the time of Thackeray. However, the Sena has to sort out issues like whether it should continue its alliance with the BJP or go it alone in the 2017 BMC polls and 2019 Assembly polls.
As it turns 50 on Sunday, the Shiv Sena — ironically enough—has a biggest political rival in its senior alliance partner —BJP — in the State. The Sena has so far made the best of both worlds — of being the part and parcel of the Devendra Fadnavis-led DF dispensation and the Modi Government at the Centre and also playing the role of the Opposition to a State Government of which it is part.
Making most of the eroded strengths of the two major Opposition parties—Congress and NCP, the Uddhav Thackeray—led Sena has been extremely critical of the Devendra Fadnavis Government on issues of public importance — a strategy the party has deftly employed to widen its base across Maharashtra. The Sena has gone to town repeatedly that it would go it alone to the crucial February 2017 BMC polls and would try to capture power in the state on its strength in the 2019 polls.
The Sena’s confidence stems from the fact that contesting alone, the party had won 63 seats 288-member Assembly and become the second largest party in the state in the 2014 Assembly polls, as against 121 seats won by the BJP which emerged as the single largest party. The two other major parties, Congress and NCP, had won 42 and 41 seats respectively.
As part of its strategy, the Sena has been using the alleged corruption scandals involving the BJP Ministers in the State and also exploiting the various scandals involving the former NCP and Congress ministers which are currently under investigation, to send out a message to the people that it is the only alternative to the BJP in the state.
On its part, the BJP has not taken kindly to the double standards of the Sena – of enjoying the fruits of power in the state and at the Centre and at the same time playing the role of the Opposition in the state. It has also made it clear to the Sena it would contest the BMC polls on its own strength and that it is not averse to going it alone in the 2019 State Assembly polls as it did in 2014.
The relations between the BJP and Sena have soured markedly during last several months. If the BJP is tolerating the Sena despite the latter’s criticism of it on a day-to-day basis, it is because that it knows full well that it cannot provide a stable Government without the support of the Uddhav Thackeray-led party and that it would be politically suicidal if it were to align with the NCP in the State.
The relations between the BJP and Sena are expected to strain further in the run-up to the BMC polls. Notwithstanding the complexities involving its strained relations with the BJP, the Sena will in likelihood indulge in muscle flexing when it celebrates its 50th foundation day on Sunday.
The Sena has come a long way since late Thackeray founded the Shiv Sena at a small function on June 19, 1966. He addressed his first Dussehra rally at Shivaji Park on October 19,1966, Barring an exception in 2005 when the party was forced to cancel its rally owing to very heavy rains, Thackeray unfailingly addressed dussehra rallies at the Shivaji Park every year till his death.
For many years, late Thackeray practised a unique brand of politics – a deadly of cocktail of regional chauvinism, intimidation, vandalism and Hindutva.
Having fired the aspirations of jobless Marathi youth in the initial years of the Sena’s formation in 1966 by targeting south-Indian migrants in Mumbai and intimidating government and semi-government set ups to ensure jobs for locals, late Thackeray enlisted goons to settle scores with leftist trade union leaders of the day, held Mumbai to ransom through frequent bandh calls in the eighties and later effectively played the Hindutva card to reap immense political benefits.
Known for his demagogy, Thackeray would – through his rabble-rousing speeches carefully interspersed with mimicry and lampooning of rival political leaders-- not only mesmerize huge crowds of Shiv Sainiks and set an agenda for his party workers, but he would also leave his critics baying for his blood for months to come.
If capturing power in the erstwhile Thane Municipal Council in 1967, a year after Thackeray founded the Shiv Sena, was a milestone in the history of the Shiv Sena, the party made a mark for itself in Mumbai in 1973, by capturing power in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and having Sudhir Joshi installed as the city Mayor with the support of one of the factions of the Congress, the RPI and Muslim league.
A feather in the Sena’s cap came in the form of the launch of the party’s Marathi newspaper “Saamana” in 1989. The biggest landmark in the Shiv Sena’s history with Thackeray at the helm of affairs was an impressive performance of the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance in the 1995 Maharashtra Assembly polls – a performance that catapulted the saffron alliance to power in the state for the first time in 1995.
Such was the clout that that he enjoyed during the saffron alliance rule between 1995-1999 that Thackeray came to be christened as “remote control” of the government.
Some of the low-points in Thackeray’s political and personal life were: first major split in the Shiv Sena in 1991 –engineered by senior party Chhagan Bhujbal who rebelled against the Sena leadership and walked over to the then Sharad Pawar-led Maharashtra Congress with 18 party MlAs, the passing away of his wife Meenatai – owing to a heart attack –in September 1996, the death of his eldest son Bindu Madhav in a road accident on April 20, 1996, his disenfranchisement for six years in 1995 ( a punishment for his communal speech in a 1986 Assembly by-poll) and a rebellion by Raj Thackeray against his son and Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray’s leadership in November/ December, 2005.
In another low point in his career, the Justice Srikrishna Commission – which probed the 1992-93 communal riots in Mumbai – indicted Thackeray for “instigating” organized attacks against Muslims, through his provocative editorials in the Sena’s official mouth-piece “Saamna”. The then Sena-BJP government rejected the Srikrishna report in August 1998.
A few of the high points in Thackeray’s political life were: the anointment of Uddhav as the Sena’s executive president of the Sena in 2002, Uddhav leading the Sena-BJP alliance to power in the BC for the three consecutive terms in 2002,2007 and 2012 and anointing his grandson Aditya as Yuva Sena chief at the annual Dussehra rally on October 17,2012.