Ad-vantage Eknath Shinde over Devendra Fadnavis? A mystery survey has Maharashtra alliance in tizzy

With seat-sharing tensions rife within the alliance, and the Opposition making hay over the advertisement, Fadnavis cancelled a visit to Kolhapur for an event he was to attend with Shinde on Tuesday evening.

By evening, the Shinde Sena had distanced itself from the advertisement. Party leader and minister Shambhuraj Desai said: “The Shiv Sena has nothing to do with the advertisement. It may have been issued by a well-wisher of our party, CM Shinde and Fadnavis.”

Shinde though didn’t really disown the advertisement completely. Speaking at the Kolhapur event, he said: “Since the people of the state can witness the development (under our government), they have shown preference for Fadnavis and me.”

Downplaying the advertisement, Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule said it is the poll results which would decide what party and leader were preferred by voters. “Shinde was popular earlier as a Cabinet minister, and now his acceptance has increased as CM. People of the state have lots of expectations from Fadnavis, Shinde and Modi,” Bawankule said.

State Education Minister Deepak Kesarkar said: “We don’t have any differences. There is no competition to take credit… The CM and Deputy CM are working like brothers.”

Besides talking about the preferred face for CM, the survey said 30.2% people in Maharashtra back the BJP, whereas 16.2% prefer the Shinde Sena.

Notwithstanding the efforts by both the Shinde Sena and BJP to downplay the development, the ripples will last as it followed statements by several BJP leaders staking claim to Shinde’s political turf of Thane, provoking a reaction from the Shinde camp.

Last week, BJP PWD Minister and Dombivali MLA Ravindra Chavan, a Fadnavis confidant who is in-charge of the BJP Lok Sabha poll preparations in Thane, said the party was well within its rights to seek a ticket from the Kalyan Lok Sabha seat in Thane district, from where Shinde’s son Shrikant is a two-term MP.

BJP MLA Sanjay Kelkar followed this up by declaring on Sunday that the entire Thane district “belongs to the BJP”, suggesting that the party wanted not just the Kalyan Lok Sabha seat, but also Thane. Currently, Rajan Vichare, who is with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena, is the MP from the Thane Lok Sabha seat.

Addressing BJP workers in Thane, Kelkar said: “Many people from the district got elected in 2014 and 2019 because of Prime Minister Narenda Modi. But those same people are now staking claim (to the seats). No one can be elected from this district without the BJP… I want to say one thing, that the entire district belongs to the BJP. Not only Kalyan but also Thane, as well as Palghar.”

The Shiv Sena had won Palghar too in 2019.

Kelkar then took a personal swipe at Shrikant, saying that instead of just taking PM Modi’s name, he should implement the schemes started by him.

Allies for an year, having come together following a split in the Shiv Sena, the BJP and Shinde Sena are set to face their first poll test together. While the BJP sees itself as the natural senior partner by virtue of its superior numbers, the Shinde Sena is wary of ceding any more ground given its wobbly position compared to the Uddhav faction.

While the Shinde Sena distanced itself from the advertisement, some sources in the party called it a “well thought out” move that sent several messages. First, it was an endorsement of Shinde’s leadership as the coalition head, given the continuing “heartburn” in some quarters over “sidelining of Fadnavis”. As per the advertisement, the leadership question is now “unambiguously settled”.

Sources in the BJP admitted the advertisement would trigger fresh talk about Fadnavis being called to the Centre. “A section in the state BJP that is not comfortable with Fadnavis playing second fiddle to Shinde thinks the leadership should give him a major role in national politics,” a BJP leader from Maharashtra said.

Sources also cited the other finding of the survey, about 30.2% people in Maharashtra preferring the BJP and 16.2% the Shinde Sena, as equally crucial. This showed that the two parties need to keep together, the sources said. “There is no other way to continue in government… The survey was in a way an appeal to Shiv Sena workers who could jump the fence (to the Uddhav Sena) that this Sena is back in the driving seat in Maharashtra,” a source said.

Post-Karnataka, the BJP has conveyed willingness to go the extra mile to retain allies or win back old ones – reaching out to the TDP in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and Akali Dal in Punjab, apart from smoothing wrinkles in ties with the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu.

Earlier, the Shinde Sena had said it wished to contest from 22 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra that the undivided Sena had fought in 2019 as part of the alliance with the BJP (the Sena had won 18 of those). The BJP had indicated it was against this, and the move on Thane and Kalyan seemed to flow from it.

Even before more known names of the BJP chipped in last week, local leaders of the party had passed a resolution saying they would not cooperate with the Shinde Sena in Kalyan. Shrikant Shinde had released a video in response, saying BJP leaders in his constituency were trying to create cracks in the alliance.