Konkan, Maharashtra: In undivided Sena bastion, a divided party gears up for tough fight: Shinde Sena vs Uddhav Sena

The region is traditionally considered to be a bastion of the undivided Shiv Sena for several decades and people from Konkan have been the traditional voters of the Shiv Sena, attributed largely to the region’s affinity towards Mumbai with scores of people from the region migrating to the financial capital for employment.

While the constituencies of Thane, Kalyan, Raigad and Bhiwandi are urbanised reaping the benefits of being in close proximity to the country’s economic powerhouse Mumbai, the coastal districts of Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, Raigad and Palghar are still considered to be rural and underdeveloped.

Tussle between 2 Senas

Konkan remained politically synonymous with Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, providing the party electoral support and also giving it a slew of leaders, who had roots in the region and who later fanned out across various parts of Maharashtra to nurture the party in the hinterlands and fuel its growth.

The party remained a dominant force in the region in spite of rebellion of senior leaders like Narayan Rane, who split from the party in 2005. While the Shiv Sena survived Rane’s exit and managed to retain a decent hold in the region, the recent rebellion of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will force the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena to prove its mettle and find out if it still has the same groundswell of support that helped it win five of the six seats in the region.

How Konkan’s six seats voted

It will now be a do-or-die situation for the Sena (UBT) as after the split, several stalwart leaders, including two out of the four sitting MPs from Konkan, have switched to Shinde-led Sena, leaving a vacuum in Sena (UBT)’s leadership. The region will see an intense battle between the two Sena factions to woo their old voter bases.

Feud between allies

In 2019, the Sena in alliance with the BJP had contested five seats; the BJP had contested one. The BJP had agreed to relinquish its claim on some of the seats due to the historic support for the Shiv Sena in the region. However, with the BJP growing in strength and the split in the Shiv Sena, there is a rumbling of discontent within the cadre of the two allies.

The seat on which this feud is most likely to play out is the high-profile Kalyan Lok Sabha seat, which is represented by Shrikant Shinde, son of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. There is unrest in the local BJP cadre about Shinde’s nomination with local BJP leaders still petitioning its leadership to ensure the candidate for 2024 Lok Sabha polls contest on BJP’s symbol lotus in Kalyan. How the party elders are able to stymie this discontent will be a thing to watch out in this election.

There is similar friction between Shinde-led Sena’s Bhaiyya Samant and BJP’s Nilesh Rane to get the Ratnagiri Sindhudurg seat.

Konkan refinery

One of the issues that is going to find resonance in the region is the setting up of the multi-billion dollar Ratnagiri Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (RRPCL) project, which is touted as the world’s largest single-location refinery complex in Rajapur, which falls in the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency.

While the BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP government is keen on ensuring the project takes shape, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena has stood on the side of those opposing the project.

Based on its long-established influence among the Konkani voters, the Sena had earlier managed to stall at least two mega projects proposed by the Centre in Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg constituency, which includes the Jaitapur nuclear plant project with French collaboration and the Saudi Arabian Aramco-led Nanar oil and petrochemicals project, both in the eco-sensitive Ratnagiri region.