November 21, 2024

Trust Vote: Cakewalk For Shinde And The BJP

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-07-04 08:12:13

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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

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The 'rebel' Shiv Sena (although it is time now to call it the real Shiv Sena on the strength of the numbers it has) and BJP alliance government in Maharashtra won the trust vote with ease getting 164 votes. Only 99 MLAs voted against it. This proves that despite the tall talk from the Uddhav Thackeray camp of MLAs being kidnapped or being otherwise lured away and the confidence that they would vote for Thackeray once they are back in Mumbai, the split in the Sena is ideological and complete. In fact, it has been reported that a couple of MLAs who had stuck to the Uddhav Thackeray group during the crisis have crossed over on Sunday. Apart from this, 2 Samajwadi Party and  one AIMIM MLA chose to abstain and several Congress and NCP MLAs chose not to attend the session, further decreasing the opposition numbers and exposing the fault lines.

The split in the party, with a majority of the MLAs siding with Eknath Shinde, is not entirely due to the fact that the MLAs were worried about Central agencies going after them. Although money might have played a major role is making the MLAs switch sides, the fact remains that apart from those based in Mumbai, most Shiv Sena MLAs from the rest of Maharashtra were feeling ignored and resented the fact that the party was allowing Sharad Pawar and the NCP to gain an upper hand. Of course Devendra Fadnavis had cultivated Shinde for long, but being Shiv Sainiks and having been brought up on the staple of Hindutva, thosewho switched sides also resented the fact that Uddhav Thackeray had compromised with the party's core ideology just to become the chief minister. They wanted the party to return to the BJP which was something not acceptable to Uddhav Thackeray. Hence, they broke away and stayed firm despite threats.

With the government now secure, at least for the next six months or until the Supreme Court an adverse order against what has happened in the assembly, the real fight will now be to gain control of the vast infrastructure of the Shiv Sena. Both groups have started acting against each other. Separate whips were issued for the trust vote by both camps. There would be technical and legal battles for the same. On another front, the Uddhav Thackeray group has locked the Shiv Sena office in the assembly and has sought an affidavit of loyalty from all office bearers of the party. But the real test will lie when the elections for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the richest civic body in India (which is now under the control of the Uddhav Thackeray group) are held sometime in or after September. The Eknath Shinde group does not command the loyalty of corporators or Shiv Sainiks in Mumbai. But with the administration now in their hand, the situation can change fast. The alliance will of course make a serious bid to dislodge the Uddhav Thackeray group from the BMC.