The Spark Is Lost

THE Shiv Sena's much-touted saffron week that began with a bang seems to have ended with a whimper. Called off half-way, it has made the Sena's rival, the Congress, utterly gleeful.

A year ago, Sena supremo Bal Thackeray had pooh-poohed AICC general secretary Madhavrao Scindia's tour of Maharashtra after he was asked to look after the state unit. "The Congress does not have guts to hold meetings in maidans as I do, drawing crowds in lakhs in Shivaji Park," he had scorned. "They can pack only halls with workers."

Now the Congress is crowing as Sena leaders failed, early in their "bhagva saptaha" (October 9-15), to pack even these halls. Caught on the backfoot, the Sena is blaming its failure to pull crowds on the vagaries of the weather—unseasonal rains. As Vidarbha Congressman T.G. Deshmukh described the week as "bhagoda saptah" (the week which ran away), state Congress spokesperson Vasant Chavan piped up: "A small thing like rain has never held back Sena crowds before. Thackeray has always taken pride in claiming that people will brave the seven seas just to hear him speak."

A point of fact which makes Thackeray see red. "As usual when it comes to the Shiv Sena, the media wears blinkers and deliberately marks down our successes," he raged. His own rallies were abruptly called off. Still, Thackeray insists that the saffron week, unprecedented in Sena history, was a thundering success.

But the fact that the Sena needed a "saffron week" in the first place to bolster its spirits points to the problems facing the party. Indications that all was not well with the Sena was evident when Thackeray's charisma failed to work wonders at the February polls and the Sena ended up with barely half-a-dozen seats. Since then, Thackeray's relations with chief minister Manohar Joshi have soured but he has no adequate replacement for the one man (Joshi) who holds the alliance and its government together.

Thackeray is also facing strong criticism from the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Republican Party of India—both are in alliance with the Congress—that "the only two unemployed youths who got jobs under the Sena regime are his son and nephew Uddhav and Raj". The Sena had promised 27 lakh jobs before year 2000. So far, despite the setting up of a private employment agency, Shiv Udyog Sena, by Raj Thackeray, not a single job has been found for anyone.

Once again, Joshi has been the whipping boy. Accompanied by Uddhav, Raj Thackeray marched into the party headquarters an hour before Joshi's scheduled press conference on the eve of the "saffron week" launch, and blamed the state government for non-cooperation. Joshi put on a brave face and denied any responsibility.

Apart from the occasional bickering among Sena leaders, Thackeray's populist measures have also invited conflict with the BJP. The Sena chief startled all, including his own chief minister, by announcing free electricity to farmers in the state at his annual Dussehra rally early this month.

Joshi kept quiet but Gopinath Munde, deputy chief minister who also holds charge of the energy department, pointed out that the government and the Maharashtra State Electricity Board could not bear the additional burden of Rs 860 crore this would entail. Munde reminded Thackeray that the Sena's own legislators had petitioned him less than a month ago when the state government hiked—for the third time—the power tariff for domestic and industrial consumers. "I do not have the guts to hike the rates for a fourth time to subsidise the farmers," he said.

It was clear that while the Sena was wooing farmers, who voted against them in a big way following crop failures, lack of government subsidies and subsequent suicides, Munde had his eye on the BJP's home-grown constituency of traders and industrialists. So both Thackeray and Joshi asked Munde to 'put up and shut up' to which Munde retorted: "If they want me to shut up, they should similarly seal their lips." He even rushed to New Delhi to complain to his party leaders. The gaping chasm between the two allies led the BJP to hold a separate cabinet meeting of its own ministers last week.

And while the BJP tried some populism of its own by seeking to hike the procurement price of cotton in a bid to woo farmers, Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Mahajan had to intervene to cool fraying tempers—and silence Munde. Just like BJP Bombay unit president Kirit Somaiyya was when he had expressed reservations about the unfeasible free slum housing project.

 Where does this all leave Thackeray and the Sena? Perhaps, on the edge of a precipice. That, however, did not deter a handful of Sainiks from converging at his residence Matoshree to record a "grand finale" to the saffron week on October 15. They lent some much needed colour to the "bhagva saptaha". Only, that might not translate into victory when the Sena faces assembly elections, 18 months away.