PUNE: In Maharashtra, some surnames have for long carried more weight than manifestos, like Thackeray and Pawar.For BJP, the January 15 polls and its favourable outcomes on Friday were not just about gaining control over the richest civic body in India — the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) — or to establish its governance in Pune, considered the cultural capital of the state.
Beyond the seat counts and ward maps there lies a much deeper objective: systematic dismantling of the two most powerful political “brands” that have defined Maharashtra for over 50 years.Also read: Ruling powers won’t stop harassing Marathi people, Raj Thackeray 1st reaction on BMC pollsThe BJP’s success in potentially marginalising these brands is not accidental. It is by design and for which the party has worked hard and long for over the last decade.The scions of the two brands saw it coming and put up a fight. The Thackeray cousins can take solace in the fact that they still retain the number two position in Mumbai. The Ajit Pawar-led NCP, which incidentally is the member of Mahayuti govt at the state, will occupy the opposition party’s space vacated by Congress in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporations.On the face of it, Uddhav’s Shiv Sena (UBT), termed as “Nakli” by BJP top brass — bagging twice the number ofseats won by Shiv Sena led by deputy CM Eknath Shinde, who had walked away from the party taking along with him the party’s official name and its symbol — may look like a moral victory for Uddhav.However, in the process, the Thackerays have been dislodged by BJP in the BMC. The BMC was not just any other civic body for Thackerays. It was their citadel for decades. A nerve centre that provided them with all the needed resources and the patronage for organisational growth, the spread of Sena Shakhas, not just in Mumbai, but across the state.This is why Uddhav joined hands with his estranged cousin, MNS chief Raj Thackeary, and they campaigned hard tosave their fortress.“It is not a battle to safeguard the existence of Thackerays, but it is a battle to safeguard the existence of Mumbai,” Uddhav Thackeray, speaking at a campaign rally in Mumbai, said on Jan 11. “They want to wipe out the Marathi manoos from Mumbai,” Raj Thackeray said in an election meeting in Thane on Jan 12.Both the Thackerays, recalling the 1961 Samyukta Maharashtra movement in which their grandfather, late Prabodhankar Thackeray, participated, claimed that the BJP was planning to separate Mumbai from Maharashtra and merge it with Gujarat.CM Devendra Fadnavis, who led the BJP’s campaign,refuted the charge. Speaking in Nashik on Jan 11 and then again at Shivtirth in Mumbai on Jan 12, Fadnavis made it a point to repeatedly refute these claims and ensured that Thackerays’ Mumbai and Marathi “Asmita” (pride) and “Astitva” (existence) card does not stick this time around.Thackerays’ arguments about growing unemployment and neglect of “son-ofthe soils” were counter-punched with a “Global Mumbai” narrative by Fadnavis. Also, BJP fielded over 90 Marathi candidates for the BMC and announced that the next mayor of BMC will be Marathi.Sources in BJP said their party had worked hard over a decade, taking one step at a time, to counter the emotive regionalism of the Thackerays and the cooperative-sector dominance of Pawars. The counter speeches rendered by Fadnavis to separate the Thackeray identity from that of Mumbai were a part of the well thought strategy.Around three years ago, BJP not just facilitated the split in Shiv Sena and NCP but caused confusion among the rank and files of both these parties, and their traditional voters, as both the factions of each party claimed the legacy of their brands.And those walking away from the founders of the party and yet getting the party’s symbol and its official name, after siding with BJP, was a bonus. It further helped BJP to marginalise the two brands.“Many of our supporters were agitated when Ajit Pawar joined the Fadnavis govt after the split in NCP. They questioned us as to why we needed Ajit Pawar as a partner in our govt. Hope they will now understand our larger plan,” a senior BJP leader told TOI .Much before the split in NCP in July 2023, BJP’s operation lotus in western Maharashtra was on since 2014. Over the years, BJP cemented its presence in cooperative sugar mills, banks and milk unions that form the NCP’s backbone.Several Pawar’s loyalist satraps and even likeminded Congress leaders who held sway over the cooperativesector shifted to BJP, weakening Pawar’s base in the “sugar bowl”.Though Ajit Pawar joined hands with his uncle’s party and ensured that the two NCP factions together emerged runner up in PMC and PCMC polls, it is hardly any consolation for the Pawar brand. NCP may have replaced Congress as the main opposition here, but the fact remains that the two Pawars together could not stop BJP from winning handsomely in their home district for the second time in a row.Ajit Pawar clarified that his party crossed swords with BJP as it was a “local poll”. Else, at the state- and national-level, his party is very much a part of the BJP led govts.
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