As long as Uddhav ensures that there is no friction among the alliance partners, there is no danger to the Maharashtra Government’s stability
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will complete one year in office later this month. He is heading a coalition Government, which consists of the Shiv Sena, the Congress Party and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Eyebrows were raised when the three parties came together to form a Government though there is no common factor among them. Despite some differences, the Government has survived for a year due to the accommodative attitude of the partners. Uddhav is the first from the Thackeray family to become the Chief Minister, though he was reluctant to occupy the chair initially. He has been functioning under the tutelage of the NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who has had a long innings, both as Chief Minister and Union Minister. It was Pawar who had put together the coalition, Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA), and keeps it going.
There have been speculations regarding the stability of the Government and many expected either the NCP or the Congress to pull out of the coalition, resulting in its collapse. However, Uddhav seems to be confident of the survival of the MVA but apprehends danger to the Government from the outside, particularly from the BJP, which is the main Opposition party in the State. Though inexperienced in governance, Uddhav has matured. In his calm and quiet manner, he is running the Maharashtra Government with help from Pawar.
So what is Uddhav’s report card like? First, his Government has survived so far. Second, like many of the other Chief Ministers and leaders around the globe, he was stunned by an unexpected pandemic, which hit the world. The outbreak of Coronavirus has been Uddhav’s biggest challenge so far as it has destroyed the economy of Maharashtra, like it has that of the country. So he faced twin challenges, apart from apprehending political instability at any time.
Maharashtra was one of the States to register the maximum number of Covid cases in the country and it may take months to stabilise. Mumbai was the worst-hit because it has Asia’s biggest slum, Dharavi, and also many workers from there and neighbouring Pune had brought back the infection from the Gulf countries, where they had migrated for better prospects. Added to that was the challenge of dealing with the thousands of migrant labourers who felt abandoned. Just like in the rest of India, in Maharashtra, too, there were cases of thousands of migrant workers trudging back home. These two challenges were difficult even for experienced administrators across India to handle. But in the end, Dharavi became the symbol of how to manage a pandemic and was lauded by the World Health Organisation, too.
Uddhav had to deal with some controversies along the way. One of them was the alleged murder of actor Sushant Singh Rajput (SSR), which turned out to be suicide, and the muck-raking that followed SSR’s death. Then there was the case of the NCP Minister Nawab Malik announcing a five per cent reservation for Muslims, which was part of the common minimum programme of the coalition. The Chief Minister quietly maintained that the issue was sub-judice and the partners kept quiet too. Another challenge for the new Chief Minister was keeping his flock together as there were major apprehensions that the BJP would break his party and engineer a collapse of the Maharashtra Government. But the Sena stood by him and perhaps to reassure them, Uddhav in his Vijayadashami speech, adopted an aggressive tone. He utilised the occasion to clarify many issues raised by the BJP. Uddhav has belied the belief that he has no fire in his belly with his new-found assertiveness. Vijayadashami would have been an ideal occasion for the Chief Minister to speak about positives and his vision for the future but he chose to counter-attack the erstwhile partner, the BJP. He also clarified the Sena’s Hindutva ideology. He said, “My Hindutva is not merely reopening temples. Those who question our Hindutva were hiding after the Babri Masjid was demolished… My Hindutva comes from Chhatrapati Shivaji, my father, and others; it’s about hitting the enemy, it’s about nationalism.” This was in reply to the Governor who questioned the Maharashtra Government’s decision not to reopen temples and tauntingly asked Uddhav whether he had “turned secular.”
Significantly, the Sena chief asserted that the MVA Government was stable. “Many (read BJP) were saying they will make the Government fall. People are still saying the same. I would like to dare them all. If you dare to try to break this Government you will fail.” He also taunted, “Rather than working on improving the economy, steps are taken to topple governments. We are heading towards anarchy.” For a novice, running the coalition was quite difficult as it was under stress all the time but the BJP is not in a position to form the Government unless it breaks the Congress or the NCP. As long as Uddhav ensures that there is no friction among the MVA partners, there is no threat to the Maharashtra Government’s stability. Uddhav must focus on development in his second year.
(The writer is a senior journalist)