Eknath Shinde as Dy CM: Shiv Sena's Woes Aren't Over, It Faces 3 Big Questions

Despite winning in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, Shiv Sena still faces an existential crisis.

Eknath Shinde has take oath as Deputy CM of Maharashtra. 

(Photo: The Quint)

After many days of uncertainty Maharashtra's outgoing chief minister Eknath Shinde finally took oath as deputy chief minister on 5 December, along with CM Devendra Fadnavis and the second deputy CM, Ajit Pawar.

Due to Shinde's indecision on taking up the deputy CM's post, Ajit Pawar even took a dig at him during the alliance's joint press conference on 4 December, saying, "I don't know about Shinde saheb, I am definitely going to take oath".

Of course, Shinde came up with a witty retort, "Ajit Dada is experienced in taking oath both in the evening and morning".

But Shinde's dilemma was understandable. To a great extent, the future of the Shiv Sena depends on what Shinde's political standing and capital is going to be in the next few years.

Despite an excellent performance in the Assembly elections - Shinde's Sena won 57 of the 81 seats it contested - the results have left the party weaker than before, mainly because the BJP won 122 seats on it own.

There are three questions that Shiv Sena faces:

• What's the party's unique identity?

• Where does its power really stem from?

• How is it going to differentiate itself from the BJP?

What's Shiv Sena's Unique Identity?

Till Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray was alive, this question didn't arise. Sena was clearly the more hardline Hindutva party compared to the BJP, which was then led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani, neither of whom disputed Thackeray's Hindu Hriday Samrat monicker. In fact, Thackeray's presence helped Vajpayee present himself as a moderate, which was politically useful at that time.

However, this got complicated after Thackeray's death in November 2012. Less than a month later, Narendra Modi won his third election as Gujarat CM, a win that catapulted him as the frontrunner to be BJP's PM face for the 2014 elections.

Modi was now seen as national Hindu Hriday Samrat, a title that had come to be associated with him in Gujarat already after the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom.

The Sena anticipated this threat and it began pitching for Sushma Swaraj as the BJP's PM face. Sanjay Raut even said that "This is what Balasaheb would have wanted".

After coming to power at the Centre with a massive majority in 2014, the BJP was no longer willing to play second fiddle to the Sena in Maharashtra and contested the Assembly polls a few months later without the alliance. The BJP won 122 seats, almost double the Sena's tally of 63. It was clear who was the Number One party in Maharashtra.

Sena's identity crisis was clear - it was no longer the main Hindutva party, nor was it the bigger partner in Maharashtra.

From the perspective of the then Sena leadership - Uddhav Thackeray and his advisors like Sanjay Raut - the Sena ran the risk of being eclipsed by the BJP unless it asserted itself. This dilemma eventually culminated in Uddhav breaking ranks with the BJP in 2019 and joining hands with the Congress-NCP alliance.

The party hoped that it would emerge as a force that could combine Marathi pride with its own version of Hindutva and assert its unique identity. But this effort suffered three blows - Shinde splitting the party, losing the symbol and now finally the Assembly poll defeat.

But this doesn't make it any easier for Shinde either. More on that in the next section.

What Does Sena's Power Stem From?

Sena has been a electoral underperformer since its inception. Even at its peak, in 1995, it could win only 73 seats. However, its influence was disproportionately more than its electoral success. The Sena's power didn't stem from the Maharashtra Assembly but from Matoshree due personality of Balasaheb Thackeray and the network of loyal Shiv Sainiks he created. By virtue of controlling Mumbai, the Sena also huge amount of attention and resources.

After Thackeray's death, the matter became complicated. Raj Thackeray had inherited his uncle's oratory but had no organisational skills and his new party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena never quite took off. Uddhav Thackeray, who controlled the Sena after his father's death, lacked his father's charisma. During the BJP-Sena government of 2014-19, one of the Thackeray's main grouses was that the BJP stopped paying its respects at Matoshree.

Even Shinde is unlikely to restore the party's glory. He is good organisation person and effective in raising resources and was a reasonably popular CM 2022 to 2024. But he is now going to be severely constrained now due to the dominance of BJP and Devendra Fadnavis.

Shinde also may not be able to claim the status of a pan-state Maratha leader because Ajit Pawar is more senior to him and has now become Deputy CM for the sixth time.

The only thing that is now working in Shinde's favour is that being in government and having key ministries with himself and his party members, raising funds and getting work done won't be a challenge. Eventually, this may help them bring on board more people from Uddhav Thackeray's Sena.

How Will Sena Differentiate Itself from BJP?

The long term challenge for Sena would be on how it plans to differentiate itself from BJP. It cannot out-Hindutva the BJP, not with the latter having Narendra Modi and Amit Shah at the helm and leaders like Yogi Adityanath in prominent positions. Even someone as minor as Nitesh Rane makes more noise on the Hindutva front than anyone from the Sena.

Shinde has tried to woo elements within the Hindutva ecosystem who are not associated with the RSS - such as one of the accused in Gauri Lankesh's murder. But this won't really have any major impact.

The BJP has also now attained very strong roots in Maharashtra. Having won over 100 seats in the state now three times in a row, BJP is now the default party of governance in Maharashtra, the way the Congress was before its split in 1999.

The Sena now really can't play the regionalist card to set itself apart from the BJP. It's not like the 1980s and 1990s when many still saw the BJP as a North Indian, 'Bhatji-Shetji (Brahmin-Bania)' dominated party. The BJP presently is a more pan-Maharashtra party than anyone else in the state.

With neither ideology nor personal charisma lending it a different identity, Sena will increasingly become more like the NCP - a regional party whose strength lies in its local leaders who exercise power in their respective pockets.

A Lesson from Assam

Shinde and the other Sena MLAs did get a chance to spend some time in Assam when they rebelled against Uddhav Thackeray in 2022. They may or may not have had a chance to study the BJP's ally in the state - the Asom Gana Parishad. Like the Sena, the party has been synonymous with regionalist son-of-the-soil politics in the state.

Contesting as Independents, candidates affiliated to the All Assam Students' Union won a massive majority in the 1985 Assembly elections and they formed the AGP after the polls. Since then the AGP had been the dominant pole of state politics along with the Congress. Even as late as 2011, AGP was the second largest party in terms of vote share after the Congress. Cut to 2016, when AGP contested in alliance with the BJP, it had become a junior partner and contested only 24 seats, winning 14 with an overall vote share of 8 percent.

In 2021, BJP spared only 22 seats for AGP, of which it won 9. It was now the number 4 party in Assam, both in terms of vote share and seat share, behind BJP, Congress and AIUDF.

The party had conceded political space to the BJP and the latter even took over its regionalist plank, especially with AGP leaders like Sarbananda Sonowal joining the BJP.

Under Himanta Biswa Sarma, this plank has also been given a clear anti-Muslim twist. The AGP presently is nothing more than an accessory for the BJP to symbolically appease the Assamese nationalist sections.

Shinde's Sena would do well to learn from the AGP's experience.