Uddhav Thackeray undid Bal Thackeray’s Hindutva legacy by linking up with the secular Congress and the NCP. And Aaditya Thackeray is being blamed for alienating Eknath Shinde. Uddhav should have understood that Raut was an overhead that would cost him dearly. Uddhav vacating ‘Varsha’, the Maharashtra CM’s official residence, was symbolic of the slide. So, why is Uddhav Thackeray clinging to the chair? Raut had told the world that the party mattered, not the government. Frankly, to everybody listening, Raut’s days of “Ukhaad Diya” were up. Sanjay Raut’s proximity to NCP supremo Sharad Pawar is thick. Like Eknath Shinde’s to Devendra Fadnavis. Aaditya Thackeray was collateral. Both Uddhav and Aaditya were in the cavalcade that left ‘Varsha’ for ‘Matoshree’, the Thackeray family residence. Things had gone from bad to worse in less than 48 hours.
The time to circle the wagons was long overdue, the Thackeray family could even have to lose the Shiv Sena. Eknath Shinde’s project “end unnatural alliance” with a takeover bid was ideated and incubated in a BJP laboratory. And right under the nose of Sharad Govindrao Pawar, the man who knows rebellions best, having engineered and led some of them himself! For Uddhav Thackeray, the Shiv Sena is at stake, the party Balasaheb Thackeray founded and nurtured. Why ‘UT’ broke from legacy and shucked Hindutva, the Shiv Sena’s staple, is a mystery. The realisation came too late. Uddhav Thackeray on his ‘Facebook Live’ said that he didn’t covet the CM’s post, but was coaxed by Sharad Pawar for the greater good. “Come, and I’ll make you chief minister,” he told Shinde. In hindsight, three amateurs – Uddhav, Raut, and Thackeray Jr. – were led up the garden path by seasoned politicians! The NCP was playing a deep game none of the Sena trio figured out. A chance at power, leading the state, had boomeranged. And the dominance of the NCP continued. Congress kept to the contours of the common minimum program. But it was impossible for the NCP, with Sharad Pawar at its head, to play second fiddle, least of all to greenhorns, rank amateurs – an inexperienced father, his presumptuous son, and an inflatable showboat, self-styled advisor.
Uddhav Thackeray mingled with K. Chandrashekhar Rao, and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, both self-made, tough as nails, politicians. Uddhav Thackeray was feted by MK Stalin and Pinarayi Vijayan. Arvind Kejriwal was not lavish with praise, but not miserly either. The feeling one got was that Uddhav Thackeray was an important cog-admired for the courage to break away from the ‘communal’ – in the Opposition. Uddhav had created his own niche Hindutva. And Bal Thackeray’s Hindutva was dead and buried. So, it is baffling why Sharad Pawar left Uddhav Thackeray to fend for himself. Pawar left Delhi saying it was an “internal problem of the Shiv Sena”. Then, after Uddhav delivered his ‘Facebook Live’, Pawar met him. But did Pawar advise Uddhav to give the government to Shinde and keep the party to himself, is it a matter to be pondered upon? Uddhav appears to have agreed. But Eknath Shinde is not Uddhav, and neither is the Chhagan Bhujbal who defected from the Sena to the Congress in 1991 when Pawar was still with the Congress.
