Andheri East bypoll: The battle for Mumbai

The BJP’s withdrawal from the fray in the Andheri East bypoll scheduled for November 3, reflects a nervousness quite unbecoming of a party that installed itself in the seat of power just three months back. Its apprehensions are even more remarkable given that its candidate this time was the runner-up in last time’s Assembly polls, getting 31 per cent of the vote as an Independent. The Sena’s winning candidate got a vote share of 43 per cent.

This time, the Congress, which had then come third with a 19 per cent vote share, had declared its support for Uddhav Thackeray’s candidate. Obviously, the BJP, which had fought the 2019 polls in alliance with the Sena, didn’t feel confident of getting the votes needed to offset the Congress advantage. Given that one-third of the constituency comprises Marathi-speaking voters, its withdrawal says a lot about the BJP’s faith in Eknath Shinde’s capacity to woo the Sena vote.

This nervousness may have also been the reason the Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) candidate had to go to court just to be able to stand for election. As a municipal employee, she had to resign, but the BMC refused to accept her resignation till it was forced to by the Bombay High Court, which called its reluctance mala fide. Earlier, the court had said “misuse of power’’ while quashing the BMC’s refusal to let Uddhav Thackeray hold a Dussehra rally in the historical Shivaji Park. For the Shiv Sena, this has been an annual ritual since its inception, except for the two pandemic years. But the BMC sat on the application, and then, after the Shinde faction also applied for the same venue, refused both on grounds of “law and order’’.

Synonymous with the Shiv Sena since 1997, the BMC, Asia’s richest municipal corporation, is today, for the first time, seen to be turning its back on the Thackerays. The municipal commissioner is a state government appointee, and when Uddhav Thackeray was CM, Iqbal Chahal had a free hand, earning national fame for the way the BMC handled the pandemic. But these two recent decisions, which were overturned by the court, show that the bureaucracy lost no time in understanding that there was a new boss in town. In the last municipal elections in 2017, the BJP, fighting separately from the Sena, came close to breaching the latter’s tally. This time, the BJP will have Shinde’s Sena as an ally. Bureaucrats are known to be experts in gauging which way the wind blows for them.

But will the Shinde faction help the BJP win the coveted cash cow that is the BMC (this year’s budget was Rs 45,949 crore)? Not wanting to leave any stone unturned, the BJP has, since taking over, done all it could to corner Uddhav Thackeray. The ED arrested his right hand man, Saamna editor and the party’s most voluble face, Sanjay Raut, who’s behind bars for over two months now. The Central agency has also conducted raids on Uddhav loyalist, ex-minister and the party’s BMC poll strategist Anil Parab and a petition has been filed inquiring into the Thackerays’ source of wealth. The government has denied permission to prosecute a senior police officer charged with tapping the phones of BJP-turned-NCP leader Eknath Khadse and Sanjay Raut.

But the real battle will be on the ground. For that, already, the Shinde-Fadnavis duo has taken the first step by propping up MNS chief Raj Thackeray to split the Sena’s Marathi vote bank, a strategy adopted by every ruling party before every election. The MNS boasts of just one corporator and one MLA. Raj Thackeray’s “ban-loudspeakers-on-mosques’’ campaign launched earlier this year turned out to be a flop; even his oratorical skills are not what they were. Promoting him is a sign of desperation.

There could be a murkier angle to the BJP’s withdrawal in the Andheri by- poll. The Congress has alleged it was a quid pro quo that resulted in the BJP getting Sharad Pawar’s support in the Mumbai Cricket Association elections. Certainly, the NCP chief’s switching of sides in these prestigious elections was remarkable for its suddenness.

Who would have thought one bypoll would have exposed so much about Mumbai politics? The welfare of Mumbaikars, though, figured nowhere in these calculations.

The writer is a senior journalist