Shiv Sena rebel Eknath Shinde replaced Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister of Maharashtra with the help and guidance of the BJP, the ‘junior’ partner in the new government. The long-standing BJP-Shiv Sena alliance originally collapsed over the BJP’s refusal to leave the chief minister’s post to the Sena. It did not want to play the role of junior partner because it won more assembly seats than the Sena in the last elections. Then why did the BJP join the Shinde government as a junior partner now? The BJP wanted to pull down the Uddhav government for betraying it and joining hands with its rivals. But this gives the party only partial satisfaction.
There is more to the BJP’s plan for Maharashtra. It would not want to continue playing junior partner to Eknath Sinde for long. Behind the short-term arrangement is the party’s apparent grand design of finishing off the Shiv Sena and absorbing its remnants and leaving no challenger for its core Hindutva vote. Shinde is the weapon in this battle. The new chief minister has his job cut out. It is more political than administrative. He has to chip away at the Sena leadership and cadre, bit by bit. After taking control of the Shiv Sena legislature party, Shinde got almost all the Sena corporators in the Thane Municipal Corporation to desert the parent party and join him.
The real battle, however, will be to wrest control of the Shiv Sena name and the party symbol. This would require the support of the majority party members in Parliament and the National Executive. Shinde may or may not succeed in achieving this. But he would certainly make a bid to gain control of the Bombay Municipal Corporation, which the Thackeray Family considers its cash cow. Even if Shinde fails to formally take over the Shiv Sena, he would have served the BJP’s purpose if he weakens the Thackeray family politically and chokes its source of funds.