Uddhav Thackeray makes his Dussehra address at Shivaji Park, Mumbai, at a time when the Shiv Sena & the BJP are struggling to look eye to eye.
Mumbai: When Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray takes the stage at Mumbai’s iconic Shivaji Park for his annual Dussehra address, it won’t be just ‘Shiv Sainiks’, but politics enthusiasts around the country who will be watching.
The Shiv Sena’s ties with ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appear to have crumbled, and it was just this January that Thackeray announced his party would go it alone in next year’s Lok Sabha and Maharashtra assembly elections.
There have been reported overtures by the BJP to pacify its ally of two decades – led by PM Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah – but the parties have since fought two Lok Sabha bypolls as rivals, and there’s been no let-up in the Sena’s acerbic comments for the BJP.
Thursday’s Dussehra address, Thackeray’s fifth as Sena chief, is expected to see him set Hindutva as the Shiv Sena’s primary agenda for 2019.
The tradition of the annual Dussehra address was launched in 1966 by the late party founder Bal Thackeray, four months after the Shiv Sena was formed.
The 1966 Dussehra rally was the then fledgling party’s first political gathering and saw an unprecedented response from Mumbai’s Marathi population.
Since then, the party’s leaders, first the senior Thackeray and then his son, have used the Dussehra rally as a show of strength, to project the Sena as the “good over evil”, and set the tone for the party’s political agenda over the following months.
The Shiv Sena has used the platform to launch the Yuva Sena and Thackeray scion Aaditya as its chief; articulate its views on political and governance issues of the day; and lambast rivals such as former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party.
More recently, the guns have been trained on PM Narendra Modi and Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
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Thackeray senior made his last address in 2012, less than a month before his death. Too frail to attend the rally, he recorded his thoughts on camera, and the video was then played before the thousands of Shiv Sainiks who gathered at the venue.
Poll bugle
The Sena chief’s speech this year is being seen as significant because it comes just months ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and a year before the Maharshtra assembly polls. It is expected that the party will use the platform to position itself as the primary ‘Hindutva’ vehicle and party of the masses to steal a march on the BJP.
The construction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya and inflation are among the issues likely to be raised, Shiv Sena sources said.
The Shiv Sena has repeatedly taken on the BJP for failing to construct the Ram Temple, a manifesto promise, despite being at the helm of a majority government.
Thackeray had recently expressed his intention to visit Ayodhya. The Sena chief also met Ram Janmabhoomi Trust chief Janmejay Sharanji Maharaj, who invited him to the holy town.
“There are some who are sitting on the throne in the name of Lord Ram,” the party wrote in an editorial in Sena mouthpiece Saamana.
“We are going because we want to remind them of Lord Ram. This is a darshan. Not a national exhibition of Hindutva for votes,” it added.
The Shiv Sena and the BJP contested the 2014 assembly election separately but joined hands after Maharashtra voters threw up a fractured verdict. Officially, despite the Sena’s potshots, the two parties currently remain partners in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), though the Sena no longer has the upper hand it once had.
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In the address, Thackeray is also likely to reiterate the Sena’s resolve to contest the 2019 polls solo, but may not say anything on discontinuing the party’s current support to the BJP and the NDA.
Over the years
Since his father’s death in 2012, Thackeray has addressed four Dussehra rallies, in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017. There was no speech at the 2014 rally as it was too close to the state assembly polls.
In three of his four speeches, he has trained guns on the BJP, severely criticising the party and its leadership on various issues.
His first, in 2013, came amid questions in the Sena about his ability to lead the party as zealously and belligerently as his father did.
Senior Sena leader Manohar Joshi walked out of the rally after Shiv Sainiks booed him out for his statements to the media about Thackeray’s leadership style.
In his speech then, the Sena chief made an emotive appeal to the Shiv Sainiks. He said the party did not believe in dynasty politics, and he was willing to relinquish his position if the workers wanted him to. He also lashed out at the then union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and the then Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan, while voicing support for the BJP and Modi.
In 2015, just as the allies’ relationship was beginning to sour, Thackeray criticised the BJP on Ram Mandir and the party’s “soft approach” towards Pakistan, and called for a ‘Hindu rashtra’ and a uniform civil code.
In 2016, with just four months to go for polls to the Mumbai civic body, from where the party derives its ego and strength, Thackeray hinted at his willingness for an alliance with the BJP for the municipal election, but only if the Sena had the upper hand.
Last year, Thackeray attacked the BJP over demonetisation and its alliance with the Peoples Democratic Party in Jammu & Kashmir, which has since collapsed. He, however, asked Shiv Sainiks to refrain from making personal attacks on Modi.
In practical terms, the SS has no alternative to allying with the BJP. It would have been good for governance and development of India’s premier state if the two saffron allies could have forged a more harmonious and productive modus vivendi.