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‘Modi-Mukt Bharat’ is Sharad Pawar-Raj Thackeray Duo’s New Refrain

The unlikely duo of Sharad Pawar-Raj Thackeray have joined hands against their ‘common enemy’ PM Modi, before 2019.

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In his no holds-barred manner, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena Chief Raj Thackeray called on Opposition parties to put up a united fight in the 2019 General Elections, so that India could become “Modi-mukt” and Indians could celebrate their third occasion of “Independence”, the first two presumably being in 1947 and 1977.

Thackeray was speaking at a packed rally on Sunday at Mumbai’s famed Shivaji Park, the venue of many social and political rebellions.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has received criticism from a few quarters in recent months, but no political leader had called for a “Modi-mukt Bharat”. Raj Thackeray was clearly spinning Modi’s 2014 battle cry of making the country “Congress-mukt”. His declaration could become the rallying cry of Opposition parties in the months ahead.

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Former ‘Modi- Bhakts’ Turn Their Backs on Him

It is no secret that Thackeray uses clever phrases, smart innuendos, and catchy slogans, but there’s no confirmation that “Modi-mukt Bharat” was his own phrase. For he had spent a good 40-minutes the previous evening with Sharad Pawar, President, Nationalist Congress Party, a one-time aspirant to the PM’s chair, and a seasoned politician who smells opportunity miles away. Raj Thackeray is that ‘welcome opportunity’ now.

Pawar, who had once dismissed Raj Thackeray as “a late-riser, part-time politician not given to hard work”, had indicated his softening stance towards the younger man in February, when he had agreed to a prestigious live interview in Pune conducted by the latter. It had taken the political world by surprise.

That both Pawar and Thackeray speak the “Modi-mukt” language is significant, given their personal rapport with Modi and their recent ‘Modi-love’. Pawar and Modi go back a long way. He hosted Modi in his pocket-borough Baramati in 2015, and Modi lavished high praise on Pawar for being his guru.

Raj Thackeray, who believed that in 2011-12 no state was as developed as Gujarat, ie, during Modi’s tenure as chief minister, had organised a sightseeing tour for the latter. Thackeray also cheered for Modi during the 2014 General Election.

Since then, he has come a long way from that giddy love, it seems.

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NCP Needs an Overhaul

It’s a different India now; murmurs against Modi and his government have gathered momentum, questions are now being asked about his cronyism and ‘selective love’ for corporates; political opposition to him and BJP Chief Amit Shah has been articulated by a growing number of regional leaders, and the Congress appears to be renewing its sinews.

As opposition parties search for a common voice and coordinated strategy to take on the Modi-Shah duo in 2019, regional and state-level alliances have become more important than ever.

In this fluid shape-shifting scenario, Pawar fancies his chances – once again – of playing a key role in negotiating opposition parties’ alliance or understanding with the fond hope that he is seen as its pivot. If he has to have weight in that formation, it is important for him to re-emphasise to other – younger and equally ambitious – leaders that he is indeed the undisputed boss-man of Maharashtra.

However, the NCP’s electoral successes have been limited, and do not give him the political gravitas he needs. Its highest tally of Lok Sabha seats in its 19-year history was nine out of the state’s 48 seats in 2004; it won six, eight and four in 1999, 2009 and 2014 elections. In state Assembly elections too, Pawar’s party has not been able to outwit the Congress, a reason why all the Congress-NCP governments have been led by Congress chief ministers.

But the NCP enjoys grass-roots support and politico-economic clout through sugar and milk cooperatives, mainly in western Maharashtra.

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Old ‘Son of the Soil’ Rhetoric

In Maharashtra’s cities, the NCP has mostly drawn a blank, save for a few seats here and there; its presence is limited, its cadres and offices virtually non-existent, and its articulation of urban issues inaudible.

A handful of young urban leaders like former minister Sachin Ahir and Jitendra Awhad have kept the party flag flying. This is the space Pawar has co-opted Raj Thackeray into.

The urban belt of Mumbai-Thane-Pune-Nashik is Thackeray’s stronghold, where his fledgling MNS stunned pollsters in 2009 LS and Assembly elections bagging four to six percent of the votes polled, and 13 Assembly seats.

Then, it won a majority in the Nashik municipal corporation and turned out impressive numbers in Thane and Kalyan-Dombivli, satellite cities near Mumbai. In 2014, at the height of his Modi-love, his party’s vote share sank to a mere 1.4 percent in the LS polls and recovered a bit to three percent in the Assembly elections six months later though only one MLA was elected to the 288-member House.

But Raj Thackeray, like his late uncle and Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackeray, has a sway over young voters’ minds and gives belligerent expression to that old (and misplaced) sentiment of the ‘good Maharashtrian’ being marginalised in his own city/state by “outsiders”.

Of late, he has been targeting the Gujaratis. During Sunday’s speech too, he asked why Ahmedabad gets priority in Modi’s PMO while charting itinerary for visiting dignitaries, even though Mumbai is the financial capital of India.

He has little interest in or empathy for rural issues.

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It Takes Two to Tango

A Pawar-Raj Thackeray coalition or electoral understanding, therefore, suits them both. It brings heft to the NCP in the key Mumbai-Thane-Pune-Nashik urban belt, and it confers badly-needed sustenance and relevance to the MNS. A renewed MNS could split the Marathi vote as it did in 2009, and upset the Shiv Sena’s calculations. The Shiv Sena has been in a strange quagmire of its own making since 2014.

Marginalised in both its alliance and in government by an aggressive BJP, its chief Uddhav Thackeray – Raj’s cousin – has adopted the bewilderingly confused position of being in government, but taking on the BJP/Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. At times, he has sounded like the state’s opposition leader.

This contradiction is waiting to be exploited politically. And Raj Thackeray has shown signs of calling out his elder cousin and bête noire.

But will the Congress play along? Any formation led by Pawar will be seen suspiciously by the Congress, never mind that Rahul Gandhi met him in Delhi recently. While Congress leaders appreciate the need for a unified opposition in 2019, they want the Congress in the driver’s seat by virtue of the fact that it has consistently done better in the elections than NCP.

It has, in the last few months, brought splinter groups of Dalits and Raju Shetti’s Swabhimani Shetkari Sangathana, with support among farmers in western Maharashtra, on board. But it would draw the line at MNS.

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How to Make India ‘Modi-Mukt’

Congress leaders spoke of certain “controversial issues” as the impediment. They have not forgotten that MNS workers targeted their party’s office at the height of its anti-hawker agitation in 2017, nor can they make peace with Raj Thackeray’s anti-north-Indian stance, given that a large part of Congress’ constituency in cities is the north-Indian migrant population. As a General Secretary asked:

How can we be seen with Raj Thackeray in Mumbai and still appeal for votes in UP and Bihar?

This and other internal contradictions have to be sorted out before an anti-BJP alliance can be quilted together in Maharashtra, but the efforts have clearly begun. And Pawar has characteristically positioned himself at the Centre of it all.

Getting Raj Thackeray on board is a part of this plan, hosting a dinner for leaders of non-BJP parties at his Delhi residence on 27 March is yet another, towards making India ‘Modi-mukt’ in 2019.

(Smruti Koppikar is a Mumbai-based independent journalist, columnist and commentator on politics, cities, gender and media. She can be reached at @urjourno. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

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Topics:  NCP   Shiv Sena   Sharad Pawar 

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