Why the BJP must sneeze when Eknath Shinde catches a cold

Eknath Sambhaji Shinde would like to leave behind the tags of ‘traitor’ and ‘lackey of the BJP in Maharashtra’. This explains his act of speaking out loud his mann ki baat (his private thoughts) that people want him to carry on as the chief minister, for he was the people’s chief minister and had led the coalition in difficult times and against all odds.

Yes, the BJP is the single largest party in the MahaYuti and has the numbers to form the government without him. Yes, Ajit Dada Pawar has pledged the support of his 41 MLAs to the next BJP chief minister. And yes, of course the RSS wants its own poster boy, Devendra Fadnavis, as chief minister.

But then Shinde would not work under Fadnavis as a deputy chief minister, in the way that Fadnavis was persuaded to work under him. He would rather stay out of the ministry altogether, appointing a trusted aide as deputy to Fadnavis — provided his party, with its 57 MLAs, is given the home and the finance portfolios, which were held by Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar respectively in the previous government. If not, he would prefer to sit out of the ministry and offer support to the government from outside.

The decision would be taken by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, he declared, and he would accept their decision and happily accept their nominee as chief minister. But he would not sacrifice his self-esteem. That appears to be the signal that the former chief minister wanted to give to the state and the people, putting the BJP in a quandary.

The BJP may not need Shinde’s MLAs to form the government, but it still needs him in the state to consolidate its position in the impending elections to the local bodies.

It would like to extend its control to the richest municipal body in the country, the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation), as well as the Thane Municipal Corporation — the two big prizes — along with other local bodies in the more prominent cities. It would be difficult to pull it off without the active support of Eknath Shinde.

Possibly sensing that his utility to the BJP was fast coming to an end, and possibly aware of how the BJP is known to have swallowed up its allies and spat them out in the past, Shinde has very few options left — or so it would seem. He is therefore playing the cards dealt to him as well as he can to ensure that he himself and his party live to fight another day. He is looking to the future and sees himself at a dead end soon enough if he agrees to become deputy chief minister, certainly.

The BJP may have pulled off a heist, with assistance from the RSS and its corporate friends, especially Gautam Adani for whom a different electoral result would have been disastrous, but possibly cannot afford to dump Shinde yet. Shinde, who would have hoped for a less formidable tally by the BJP, is desperate enough to defy Amit Shah. Luckily for him, he knows a little too much of how the state was run, the purse strings loosened and the election was won.

He had patched up relations with the BJP after Uddhav Thackeray broke it off, persuaded the Shiv Sena MLAs and MPs to revolt, helped in carrying out the daring defections—and now would like to be repaid or rewarded.

If he is replaced as CM, he would have argued, it would send a wrong message to the OBCs and the Marathas in the state; it would indeed send out a wrong lesson to BJP’s own allies.

He would also have impressed upon the BJP that if he is no longer the chief minister, it would give the rival Shiv Sena faction and Udhdav Thackeray a fresh lease of life. The Shiv Sena (UBT) may have been weakened, but it has just won 10 assembly constituencies in Mumbai, with half of its 20 MLAs in the assembly.

He still has the support of a large section of the Shiv Sainiks and retains the potential to strike back. Sidelining him after the impressive win in the assembly polls would strategically backfire too, he might have suggested.

Eknath Shinde, who claims to be the legitimate political heir of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, is known to be a man of few words. He is known for his “simplicity and round-the-clock accessibility” — but also for being a dangerous man to cross.

There can be little doubt that despite the electoral victory of the Mahayuti, Shinde is also fighting for his political survival.