Mumbai: The BJP’s inadvertent admission of breaking up the Shiv Sena — and allegations of the party running the show under the Eknath Shinde administration — is likely to heat up Maharashtra’s state politics when the incumbent government, a coalition of the rebel Shiv Sena and the BJP, holds the first session of the legislature after the 4 July floor test.
The monsoon session of the Maharashtra legislature is set to begin from Wednesday.
Last week, BJP Rajya Sabha MP and former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi, addressing a press conference, said that the BJP had never broken any of its allies. He was addressing the BJP’s split with the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar.
“They are saying that attempts were being made to break the JD(U), an example of Shiv Sena is being given. Shiv Sena was not our ally,” he said.
MLAs and MLCs from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena told ThePrint that one of the major issues in the monsoon session of the legislature, which begins Wednesday, would be how the BJP is allegedly running the show — right from bringing down the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, to keeping major portfolios with itself, and crunching the monsoon session to just five days.
The MVA government comprised the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and the Congress.
“This will definitely be the main issue during the monsoon session. The BJP was acting innocent, but everyone knew that the party was behind the split in the Shiv Sena. Now, a responsible leader of the party has admitted and the BJP has no face left to show,” said Bhaskar Jadhav, a Shiv Sena MLA who has stayed loyal to Thackeray.
Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde, in June, led a rebellion of 40 MLAs and walked out of the Thackeray-led MVA, causing it to fall. The MLAs then formed a government with the BJP with Shinde as CM and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis as the deputy CM.
Following Sushil Modi’s remarks last week, BJP MLA Ashish Shelar, now the party’s Mumbai unit president, said the BJP didn’t orchestrate Shinde’s rebellion, which he added was due to ideological differences with his party’s leadership.
Also Read: All male, 50-50 BJP-Sena power-sharing — what new Shinde-Fadnavis cabinet looks like
‘BJP running the show’
During the monsoon session, MLAs and MLCs from the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena plan to target the legislators who rallied with Shinde on how the BJP is seemingly holding the reins to the government despite Shinde becoming the CM.
Deputy CM Fadnavis has kept some of the most important departments such as home, finance, housing and energy with himself.
In the 48 days that the government has been in power, the BJP has also pushed projects that are politically significant for it, such as the showpiece Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train and the Aarey Metro car shed.
The Thackeray-led Shiv Sena had opposed both these projects. While Thackeray, as CM, ignored the bullet train project, he had scrapped the Aarey Metro car shed, relocating it to Kanjurmarg.
Shiv Sena MLC Manisha Kayande said they “plan to strongly take up the issue of the Aarey Metro car shed”. “The running theme will be how the BJP is orchestrating everything in the government,” she added.
Shiv Sena MLA Ajay Chaudhari, who Thackeray appointed as the party’s group leader after the Shinde-led rebellion, said Sushil Modi’s statement was the BJP’s “official admission” to what is already well-known. “Everyone knew that the split in Shiv Sena was the BJP’s doing. All the planning was done by the BJP,” he added.
He said, “After the floor test, CM Shinde had also admitted that he and Fadnavis used to meet after the world had gone to sleep ahead of the rebellion, and that Fadnavis would come wearing disguises.”
The Thackeray-led Shiv Sena’s allies in the MVA are also likely to back the party in its attack on the ruling coalition.
NCP spokesperson Mahesh Tapase told ThePrint that the BJP had been trying its best to topple the ruling dispensation ever since the MVA came to power in 2019.
“BJP leaders have now admitted to dismantling the MVA government by splitting the Shiv Sena. There have been floods in different parts of the state but no relief given to farmers, and now we are seeing Shiv Sena rebels giving open threats to citizens,” Tapase said, referring to rebel MLA Santosh Bangar purportedly hitting a caterer over food quality.
“Shinde is CM only for aesthetics. The government is actually being run by super CM Devendra Fadnavis,” he added. “We will raise all these issues in the legislative session.”
(Edited by Siddarth Muralidharan)
Also Read: Expanded Maharashtra Cabinet still a two-man show as CM, Dy CM retain plum portfolios