The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) experiment has put a question mark over Uddhav Thackeray’s political future in 2022, even as the massive split in the Shiv Sena and the subsequent political pot boils in Maharashtra throughout the year.
Maharashtra, which was ruled by the Congress until 1977–78 and later in the early 90s, centered around the ‘Aghadi’ (coalition fronts of the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party) and the ‘Yuti’ (Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party) Following coalition politics. function). The turmoil in the Shiv Sena resulting from the fall of the MVA government was the second such instance in the political history of the state.
As a minister in 1978, Sharad Pawar led a rebellion and toppled the Vasantdada Patil government to become chief minister at the age of 38.
The era of coalition politics took an unprecedented turn this year when Eknath Shinde walked out along with 39 rebel Shiv Sena MLAs and claimed to be the original Sena. The political situation in the state with 288 MLAs and 48 Lok Sabha MPs has never been more complicated.
The dust is expected to settle after elections to civic and local bodies, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), to be held in 2023. Supreme Court and till there is no clarity Election commission of India (ECI) takes a definite stand on the interpretation of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution which is designed to prevent political defection.
The two-and-a-half-year-old coalition led by Thackeray, comprising his Sena, the NCP and the Congress, ran into trouble on 21 June when Shinde and his supporters, including some independent MLAs who had earlier sided with the MVA, defected. Went to Surat in BJP ruled Gujarat. The group then moved to Guwahati in Assam, another BJP-ruled state.
On 29 June, Uddhav Thackeray resigned from the post of CM before the floor test. The next day, Shinde was sworn in as Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis as Deputy CM.
When it was widely speculated that Fadnavis would return as chief minister, he announced that he would stay out of the new government and that it would be headed only by Shinde. But the BJP high command publicly ordered Fadnavis to join the government as deputy CM.
The MVA’s troubles began to mount on June 10, when the BJP won three out of six seats in the Rajya Sabha elections and the Shiv Sena candidate lost one. On 20 June, out of 10 seats in the Legislative Council elections, the Shiv Sena and its allies were expected to win six, but due to cross-voting from the MVA, the BJP got the same number of seats, but won only five.
Soon after the council election results, Shinde and some Sena MLAs went missing and were later found in a hotel in Surat. Shinde was removed as the leader of the Shiv Sena Legislature Party and a disqualification petition was filed in the Supreme Court, prompting Shinde to challenge the move.
Amidst the tussle between the two factions, the Election Commission has frozen the symbol of the bow and arrow and the name of the Shiv Sena party.
The army factions were also confronted through house rules and the court. After the crackdown on Shinde, the rebel MLAs declared him the leader of the Shiv Sena Legislature Party. The Thackeray faction then filed a petition against the rebel MLAs and demanded that Deputy Speaker Narhari Jirwal disqualify the 16 MLAs of the Shinde camp. Girwal first met Shiv Sena leaders before meeting the Advocate General for legal opinion.
Shinde moved the Supreme Court challenging the disqualification petition against 16 of them. The apex court directed the deputy speaker to adjourn the next hearing till July 11 to give time to the rebel MLAs.
On 28 June, Fadnavis met Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and demanded a no-confidence motion against Thackeray. On 29 June, Koshyari ordered that a vote of confidence be held by 30 June and the government’s assembly numbers be proved. Shiv Sena immediately moved the Supreme Court against this order. The same day, the SC refused to stay the no-confidence motion and ordered it to be held the next day. “The floor of the House is the only way to resolve all the issues,” the court said. Hours later, Thackeray resigned.
The Supreme Court will hear pleas related to the political crisis in the state on January 13.
Other incidents dominating the state’s political scene included the arrest of NCP leader Nawab Malik in February and Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut in July on charges of money laundering. Raut came out on bail after being in jail for more than 100 days. While Malik is still in jail, his party colleague Anil Deshmukh, facing corruption charges, was released on bail on 28 December after 13 months.
Even after almost six months, the Shinde government has not gone for cabinet expansion. Ministers of State are yet to be appointed. Including the CM, there are a total of 18 cabinet ministers at present. The opposition claims that the cabinet expansion is pending due to widespread unrest and the government may fall.
The Andheri East assembly by-election in November marked the first electoral battle after the Shiv Sena split. Late MLA Ramesh Latke’s wife Rutuja has won on a Shiv Sena (UBT) ticket.
Another highlight of the year was that the Mumbai Police did not allow the Thackeray faction to hold its annual Dussehra rally at Shivaji Park. The party approached the High Court for relief.
On 17 December, the MVA organized a protest rally in Mumbai against Governor Koshyari for allegedly insulting national icons of the state and shifting large projects such as Tata Airbus and Vedanta-Foxconn out of the state. It criticized the government for remaining silent against Karnataka’s provocation on the Maharashtra-Karnataka border line. The rally was seen as a show of strength by the opposition parties.
Tension escalated when Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, allegedly through tweets, claimed villages in Sangli and Solapur and declared that his government would not give even an inch of its territory to Maharashtra. When Union Home Minister Amit Shah mediated between the two state governments in Delhi, Karnataka claimed that the Twitter account from which the messages were sent was fake.
Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra entered Maharashtra on 7 November and passed through five districts of the state for 14 days. The party said the response to the yatra is a clear indication that Rahul Gandhi’s march has re-energized the cadre and infused new energy into the organisation.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)