Form of words:
Mumbai: As the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra approaches its two-year anniversary next month, the top leadership of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have drawn closer, but on the ground, animosity between workers and the two The leaders of the second rung of the parties remain.
In the last two years, there have been at least eight instances where leaders of the NCP and Shiv Sena have publicly clashed over local issues or over sharp statements made by one party against the other.
NCP leaders angered Shiv Sena leaders with statements like Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray becoming CM “only because of NCP president Sharad Pawar’s blessings”, and accused NCP of tearing posters and cutting party wings.
Shiv Sena leaders have also pulled up the NCP for stabbing Pawar in the back and even NCP minister Chhagan Bhujbal. Till the court
The latest flashpoint was in Thane on Monday, When there was a ‘credit war’ between the two parties over the last few days over the vaccination campaign organized by the Army-led Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC).
The NCP alleged that the Shiv Sena was taking all the credit for the event by putting up its posters and merchandise at a vaccination site in Kalwa and Shiv Sena corporators were removing their party’s banners, appealing to people to join the campaign.
“You can see Shiv Sena councilors tearing our banners at 3 am in the CCTV footage. Shiv Sena leaders further said that although the campaign was run by TMC, the cost of its arrangement was borne by the Army, and the NCP does not have the resources to do something like this. The very next day we went to Thane Mayor with a check of Rs 20 lakh and said that we want to run two such campaigns, one in Shiv Sena MLA Eknath Shinde’s constituency, but he got angry and this led to another verbal There was a dispute. from Thane who told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
The leader said that though both the parties were in power together at the state level, in Thane they were the “principal opposition” of the Shiv Sena “so these issues are bound to happen”.
“As a party, we cannot agree with everything Shiv Sena has to say. We have been rivals for so long, suddenly we cannot bond.
However, Thane’s mayor, Shiv Sena’s Naresh Mhaske, told ThePrint that the Shiv Sena had helped the TMC organize vaccination camps and tried to bring people to the venue.
“The camp was in the area where our party corporators are, so I don’t see any problem if they put up party posters in the pandal. NCP should not have put up its posters unnecessarily. When we organized various vaccination camps, we deliberately stayed away from areas where NCP councilors are there as we did not want to encroach on their grounds.
Mhaske said the sensibility of coalition partners should be respected in a coalition government. “When there is a coalition government in the state, how can they (NCP) protest us like this by leveling allegations against us in front of the media? Even when NCP posters were torn, I personally called NCP Thane president Anand Paranjpe to sort out the matter. But if the party continues to publicly defame Shiv Sena then we too cannot remain silent.
Read also: Allies in Maharashtra, Congress and Shiv Sena face off in Dadra and Nagar Haveli by-elections
Continuing history of Shiv Sena-NCP conflict
Within just four months of the formation of the MVA government, there were signs of friction between the Shiv Sena and the NCP cadre.
In March 2020, former Shirur MP Shivaji Adhalrao Patil, an army leader, alleged That Deputy CM Ajit Pawar and the NCP were “unjust” with the Shiv Sena and “trampling” the party. He said the NCP was trying to obstruct the work of Shiv Sena in the region as Shiv Sena does not have a single senior leader from Pune region in the state assembly.
The Shirur Lok Sabha constituency has been a constant source of animosity between the Shiv Sena and the NCP. This constituency was created in 2008 and has been organized by Shiv Sena since its first election in 2009. Earlier, most of the constituencies came under the Khed Lok Sabha seat, which was also occupied by the Shiv Sena.
In 2019, the NCP ended Shiv Sena’s rule after a bitter fight between Shiv Sena’s Patil and NCP’s Amol Kolhe, an actor who played Chhatrapati Shivaji’s son Sambhaji on television.
In June 2021, Shiv Sena and NCP clashed in Khed taluka of Shirur constituency, when five Shiv Sena members joined the NCP for a no-confidence motion against Shiv Sena’s Bhagwan Pokharkar, the president of Khed Panchayat Samiti.
Shiv Sena Held Khed MLA Dilip Mohite Patil and Shiv Sena’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut, who were responsible for the incident, have had several altercations with the MLA Patil since then. However, speaking to ThePrint, the two leaders underestimated the differences.
“In any coalition, there are bound to be issues at the local level because workers (activists) have their own political aspirations. It used to be between Shiv Sena and BJP, as well as between Congress and NCP. But, from time to time these issues get resolved,” Raut told ThePrint.
Meanwhile, Mohite Patil of NCP said, workers Are not always strong on ideology and often protest for the sake of protest.
“They are used to considering one” worker As an enemy of the other side for so long that they cannot adjust and suddenly call that person a friend now,” he said.
“But, if you see what the BJP is doing in the country now, it needs to be defeated,” he said. Shiv Sena was an honest ally of BJP for 25-30 years, but in the last five years of that alliance, BJP treated Shiv Sena very badly. Our principle is that the enemy of our enemy is our friend.”
A month later, in July, Shivaji Adhalrao Patil and Kolhe, former and sitting MPs, clashed over a local bypass, both of which had been inaugurated separately in a span of two days. NCP MP during the inauguration under Kolhe crumpled Local Shiv Sena leaders said the party “should not forget” that Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray became the Maharashtra CM only because of the blessings of NCP president Sharad Pawar.
Shiv Sena retaliated, party leader Kishor Kanhere issued a statement saying NCP should also not forget with whose help it can come to power, and warned that later the grapes of power should not be allowed to turn sour. .
Kolhe did not respond to calls from ThePrint.
In August 2021, when Patil, a former Shiv Sena MP, called on Sena MoS Abdul Sattar to inaugurate a new party administrative unit in Pargaon village as well as a gram panchayat office there, protocol demanded that the area be The sitting MLA of the Lok Sabha will be Atul Benke of the NCP. Attended to receive MOS. However, When it became clear that Benke was late for the incidentLocal Shiv Sena leaders told ThePrint that an angry Sattar left the stage amid sloganeering by Shiv Sena workers and left the venue.
Neither Patil, Sattar nor Benke responded to ThePrint’s call for comment.
Shiv Sena MLA Suhas Kande in September contacted Bombay High Court seeks removal of Chhagan Bhujbal of NCP Minister Mentor For the district, it said, the minister allocated more funds from the District Planning Development Council to constituencies containing NCP legislators, and his constituency, Nandgaon, was truncated.
Addressing a press conference, Kande gave his point of view: “The argument is on one person (Bhujbal) who has put Balasaheb behind bars. The argument is not about MVA. I request you to understand this.”
In the same month, in Konkan’s Raigad district, Shiv Sena’s Anant Geete, a former Union minister, said Sharad Pawar stabbed the Congress in the back and such a person cannot be the “guru” of Shiv Sena. Sunil Tatkare, a senior NCP leader from Raigad, hit back saying that the statement “came out of desperation” and that Geet was missing in action for two years after he lost the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Geete told ThePrint that he did not want to comment, while Tatkare did not respond to calls from ThePrint.
Shiv Sena vs NCP vs Congress: Allies, Friends and Former Enemies
The MVA consists of Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress. The NCP and Congress have been traditional allies, while the Shiv Sena was their ideological enemy until the formation of the MVA, being a party from the saffron side and in alliance with the BJP.
Pawar and Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray were the best of friends, but the bitterest of political enemies. However, Shiv Sena and NCP came together after the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections. Form A government when the results threw a hung assembly and the Shiv Sena reportedly ended its alliance with the BJP for not honoring its assurance of sharing all posts and portfolios equally, including the CM post.
Eventually, the Congress agreed to form the MVA government along with the other two parties, but its leaders were growing rapidly. felt As Thackeray and Pawar were getting closer, as if they were the third wheel.
There are instances of power struggle between Shiv Sena and NCP over issues such as the NCP-led home department, transfer of some Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCP) in Mumbai without the explicit approval of the CM, and the NCP inducting five Shiv Sena councillors. Is. Last year in the presence of Ajit Pawar. However, a series of meetings between CM Thackeray, Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar resolved these issues and the DCP’s transfers were reversed and five councilors were sent back to the Army.
Meanwhile, Pawar has always raised Thackeray’s ears. The two leaders often meet in-camera to discuss governance and political issues, and Pawar pats Thackeray on the back every time the CM comes under attack from the opposition.
In July 2020, Pawar became the only prominent non-Thackeray leader to be interviewed faceThe mouthpiece of Shiv Sena. In the three-part interview, Pawar had said revealed That the NCP’s offer of external support to the BJP to form the government in Maharashtra in 2014 was a “planned move” to distance the Shiv Sena from the BJP for the benefit of the Shiv Sena.
Pawar speaking on the foundation day of NCP in June 2021 said His cadre trusts the Shiv Sena to “show history that the party can be trusted”.
Shiv Sena also Comfortable Even to the NCP and Pawar, on whose word the MVA rests, often by suggesting that the NCP leader should be in charge of the opposition alliance at the national level.
However, the new professional union between the leadership of the Shiv Sena and the NCP does not necessarily lead to deceit among its workers on the ground.
(Edited by Paramita Ghosh)
subscribe our channel youtube And Wire
Why is the news media in crisis and how can you fix it?
India needs free, unbiased, non-hyphenated and questionable journalism even more as it is facing many crises.
But the news media itself is in trouble. There have been brutal layoffs and pay-cuts. The best of journalism are shrinking, yielding to raw prime-time spectacle.
ThePrint has the best young journalists, columnists and editors to work for it. Smart and thinking people like you will have to pay a price to maintain this quality of journalism. Whether you live in India or abroad, you can Here.