Mumbai: On Tuesday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde walked into a small one-room house in Thane with a cavalcade of reporters, camera persons, and members of his own team. He sat on a plastic chair in front of a wall lined with two cupboards. Next to him on another plastic chair sat a woman of the house, dressed up in a bright pink saree.
Shinde asked the woman, a beneficiary of the Mahayuti government’s ‘Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana’ (My beloved sister scheme), if her importance in the house had surged because of the money she got under the scheme, and told her to spread the word among womenfolk.
“I can’t believe you have come to my house,” the woman said. “Well, I am a member of your family,” Shinde replied.
There is a massive credit war playing out among the Mahayuti allies—the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)—over the schemes that the government has introduced in the last three months in the run up to the Maharashtra polls expected in November.
And in this war for credit, all three parties are coming up with innovative ways of branding their leader—CM Shinde for the Shiv Sena, Deputy CM Ajit Pawar for the NCP and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis for the BJP—as the real brother behind the ‘Ladki Bahin’ scheme and the godfather of all the other incentives and subsidies launched since July.
Announced in the Maharashtra budget in July, the Majhi Ladki Bahin provides Rs 1,500 a month to eligible women in the age group of 21 to 65 years with a family income of less than Rs 2.5 lakh.
CM Shinde always refers to this scheme with the suffix ‘Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana’, while the other two parties prefer advertising it without the suffix. The other schemes for which the three Mahayuti parties are individually trying to hog credit include free electricity for farmers, an apprenticeship scheme for youngsters, a scheme for free higher education for eligible women, and so on.
The ‘battle of the brothers’ is the result of a direct power tussle involving the three leaders and that the alliance is unlikely to go into elections with a definite chief ministerial face. All three parties and their leaders have a lot at stake.
The BJP, the older brother in the alliance, would like to maintain that position though Fadnavis, a former CM, had to settle for the position of a deputy CM in the current arrangement.
Ajit Pawar has been a five-time deputy CM with the top post having always eluded him. Moreover, his party would like to spring back after its dismal performance in the Lok Sabha polls when it won just one of the four seats it contested.
The Sharad Pawar-led NCP, against which nephew Ajit had rebelled in 2023 causing a vertical split, had the best strike rate of all parties in Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, Shinde, who rebelled against the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena with a majority of MLAs and claimed to be the real Shiv Sena, hasn’t affirmatively won in the court of the people. Moreover, he became the CM because of an arrangement with the BJP after the rebellion that may or may not continue post elections.
CM Shinde’s string of home visits was a part of the same branding effort. After leaving the house of the woman in the pink saree, he then went to the house of another beneficiary. The script remained the same. The cavalcade too remained the same, and the entire charade was broadcast live on the CM’s social media handles.
“There is no credit war. We are working as a party just like we are working as a government. All three of us go for cheque distribution programmes in the Ladki Bahin scheme. All three parties are getting their ‘karyakartas’ (workers) to promote the scheme,” Shinde told reporters in Thane.
Political commentator Hemant Desai told ThePrint that the triumvirate had their own insecurities to deal with.
“Fadnavis couldn’t deliver a victory for the BJP in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha elections. If he can’t deliver in the state polls too, it will be a big setback for him. Other party leaders such as Girish Mahajan and Vinod Tawde will try to capitalise on the situation.”
“Shinde’s insecurity is that his real fight is against Uddhav Thackeray, that despite having the entire party he got fewer MPs elected as compared with Thackeray’s Shiv Sena. Also, if he doesn’t deliver he has no shot at being the CM again. Ajit Pawar is facing an existential crisis, so he has his insecurities too,” he added.
Also Read: Mahayuti power play out in open as polls near. From outbursts to a CM-deputy cold war in Mantralaya
‘Dada’s promise’
For Ajit Pawar, pink has been the colour of the season. Over the past month, the deputy CM toured Maharashtra, addressing rallies as part of his ‘Jan Sanman Yatra,’ wearing an onion pink jacket over a white kurta and directly addressing people about the various schemes he as finance minister has approved for them, especially for the women.
📍बारामती
बारामतीच्या माझ्या बहिणींनो तुमचं प्रेम असंच पाठीशी राहू द्या! #जनसन्मान_यात्रा #JanSanmanYatra pic.twitter.com/UYFbl2YxGV
— Ajit Pawar (@AjitPawarSpeaks) September 2, 2024
His party has also launched a new theme song, ‘Dada cha vaada’ (a brother’s promise), capitalising on what Ajit Pawar is unofficially, popularly known as across the state, Dada.
The music video shows women dancing in pink ‘nauvari’ (nine-yards) sarees and men with onion pink caps and waist sashes, while Ajit Pawar in his pink jacket meets various people. The video shows people holding placards of various schemes—Ladki Bahin, free electricity for farmers, free gas cylinders to eligible families, and so on.
The NCP has also launched a ‘Maharashtravadi’ helpline to get information about all the schemes that the Mahayuti government has launched. It keeps posting testimonial videos of people who have benefitted from the helpline.
On Tuesday, however, the BJP attempted to punch a hole in this ‘Dada cha vaada’ narrative and also indirectly took barbs at CM. Outside Shinde’s house in Thane, his home turf, was a large hoarding of the BJP advertising the ‘Ladki Bahin’ scheme with a blow up of Fadnavis’ face and the words ‘Deva Bhau’ (brother) written next to it.
The party had included a small photo of Shinde next to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the top right, but there was no mention of Ajit Pawar.
The Ajit Pawar-led NCP played down the controversy. “How does it matter whose photo is where? What is important is that people are benefitting from these schemes,” NCP minister Chhagan Bhujbal told reporters.
‘Deva bhau’
The Thane poster was in a way also a snub for Shinde as it came on a day when the CM was to launch his party’s new outreach programme, ‘Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana Kutumba Bhet’ (visits to families of women who have benefited under the scheme).
Under the outreach programme, Shinde has asked every Sena worker to visit at least 15 families in the next one week. He himself will reach out to 15 families.
“The schemes are all of the Mahayuti government. The decisions are taken by all three leaders—CM Shinde, Deputy CMs Ajit Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis—together. Karyakartas at times do certain things out of their own enthusiasm. But, the three leaders are very clear in their thought process and the credit belongs to the Mahayuti government as a whole,” BJP state spokesperson Keshav Upadhye told ThePrint.
Like the other two parties, the BJP is promoting the Mahayuti’s schemes with their own leader’s photos and videos, branding Devendra Fadnavis as ‘Deva Bhau.’
मनोगत अंक १ सप्टेंबर २०२४
लाडका देवाभाऊ
वाचण्यासाठी क्लिक करा… https://t.co/kVRc9gtKkA pic.twitter.com/vBwURffKz7
— भाजपा महाराष्ट्र (@BJP4Maharashtra) September 3, 2024
In its September issue, ‘Manogat,’ a publication of the BJP, had ‘Ladka Deva Bhau’ (beloved Deva Bhau) as its cover story with the image of Fadnavis wearing an onion pink coat flanked by women keen to tie him a Rakhi. It featured article by BJP Maharashtra president Chandrashekhar Bawankule, who wrote about various women-centric schemes launched under Fadnavis’ leadership as CM between 2014 and 2019 and even now, under the Mahayuti government.
Similarly, around the Ganpati festival, the BJP has organised a Rangoli competition for women titled, ‘Ek Rangoli Ladkya Bahini Saathi’ (one rangoli for the beloved sister) where it has invited women to send photos of their rangoli designs on a WhatsApp number. The promotion for the contest shows a woman decorating a flower rangoli as Devendra Fadnavis stands behind a podium wearing a traditional Maharashtrian ‘pheta’ (headgear).
Then on Monday, the BJP posted a 20-second video on the social media platform ‘X’ where an animated Fadnavis is writing down a To-Do list of four items. The top most is ‘Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana,’ the second is a electricity bill waiver, the third is a scheme for free education for women and the fourth is a scheme for apprenticeship for youngsters. He signs the paper as ‘Devendra Fadnavis.’
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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