The Writing On The Wall

MUMBAI

The Shiv Sena’s phoenix-like rise in the civic elections held across Maharashtra last week has stunned many, except those who saw the writing on the wall. Clearly, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party did not. Congress leaders are making the mandatory trip to New Delhi to "brief" party president Sonia Gandhi on "reasons for the debacle". Of the nearly dozen civic bodies that went to the polls, the Sena-BJP alliance won half including the prestigious Mumbai, Thane, Nagpur, Nashik, Ulhasnagar while emerging as a force to reckon with in two others. Only Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, known as Sharad Pawar’s bastions, re-elected the NCP while Akola and Amravati stayed with Congress.

Sena chief Bal Thackeray, who had turned 80 just the previous week and had been written off, duly thanked the "Marathi manoos" for keeping the party’s prestige in tact. Nothing, it seems, can dislodge the Sena’s relationship with the urban centres, mainly Mumbai and Thane – not the deluge of July 26, 2005 that completely exposed the crumbling infra-structure and maintenance of the two cities where the Sena-BJP has been in power for close to 15 years now, not the collective dismay over severely potholed roads that were repaired on orders of the Bombay high court, not the burgeoning slums, perennial traffic jams and rising clout of real estate lobby that indicate total lack of urban planning, not allegations of corruption that were routinely proved, not the desertions of key party functionaries like Narayan Rane and Sanjay Nirupam, not the split engineered by nephew Raj Thackeray, not even the ill-health of Bal Thackeray himself that kept him from election campaigns except for a public meeting. In a matter of three days last week, the Shiv Sena seemed to have transformed from a spent force to a rocking resurgent party. Equally, the void created in the BJP by late Pramod Mahajan’s death last May seemed not to have affected the party in any major way. The BJP partnered the Sena just as it had last 25 years, held together most of its workers and the cadre, and held on to its stronghold Nagpur.

More than any other civic corporation, the Sena’s winning Mumbai surprised many. It is rather easy to get swayed in the euphoria of unexpected victories. Retaining 112 of the 227 seats in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) when nothing was going the Sena’s way is no mean feat but the victory calls for a closer look at a few home truths about the party, its strategies, its opponents and their strategies and equally the will of the people of Mumbai, at least the Marathi-speaking population in the city that felt increasingly threatened by migrant Uttar Bharatiyas, a local term to denote people largely from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who are a political and economic force to reckon with. If this was an election contested solely on civic issues – for a good part of the campaign it was – then the Sena-BJP should have lost control of the BMC. The Congress believed it could wrest power, that the 2007 election was its best bet to finish off the Sena.

Finish off it didn’t, but the Sena tally in the House dropped by 14 seats from five years ago. Whether Thackeray and son Uddhav admit it or not, this is a setback in some ways. Secondly, it will be difficult for the party to declare that it represents Mumbai. It doesn’t in the real sense; it represents Maharashtrians or the Marathi-speaking population in the city because clearly the Uttar Bharatiya vote did not fall in its kitty. Thirdly, Dalits and Muslims rejected all overtures of all parties to vote en bloc for Republican Party of India and Samajwadi Party respectively. This implies that the Sena, despite Uddhav’s efforts to broadbase the ideology and cadre, has remained in the groove it always was. Fourthly, Raj Thackeray did manage to impact some votes of the party; his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena got seven seats. And lastly, the Thackerays junked all issues of governance and civic importance to make their final appeal an emotional one. Their line that only Maharashtrians can halt the process of separating Mumbai from Maharashtra worked beautifully for all those who fear such a move. Clever strategy for a party that should have been on the defensive about a dying city it governed for 15 years.

The Congress and NCP paid the price for believing that wresting Mumbai was a foregone conclusion. Large-scale disillusionment with the Sena had to be capitalized upon; neither of them did. An alliance between them would have completely changed the picture but such an alliance did not happen. Rather, insiders say, was not allowed to happen. Congress sources say they made all the efforts and overtures, gave NCP almost everything they had demanded but put their foot down on seats where only the Congress stood a chance. Reports show that had the two formed an alliance, they would have bagged at least 33 seats more than their present tally of 85 (Congress 71, NCP 14). Had the alliance included RPI and SP, the Sena-BJP would have had to lick its wounds. It was clear that the NCP was posturing, but at whose insistence was not apparent two months back. Now, there’s serious talk that the Sena-BJP scuttled the alliance and the NCP was actually helping the Sena through the backdoor.

Pawar has denied this but Sena’s Marathi daily Saamna declared on Monday: "The NCP fought against the Congress in all municipal corporations except Akola. So why doesn’t it join hands with the Sena to keep away the Congress?" In Pune and Nashik, the Sena will be very comfortable if the post-poll support comes through. Sena leader and former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi believes Pawar will eventually relent. If he does, it could alter political equations in the state and at thecentre. What’s interesting is that neither Pawar nor his key lieutenant, civil aviation minister Praful Patel who negotiated with the Congress, can tell why they did not agree to an alliance. It’s clear that political games were, and still are, afoot. The only loser is the city of Mumbai. Smug in its victory, the Sena-BJP is best placed to continue its policy of hands-off governance, disinterest in civic issues, even deliberate mismanagement as it has in the last decade and half. The time-line almost exactly matches the decline of the city, never mind the grandiose plans for it. For the Congress and NCP, the greater the decline, the better their chances at the next poll outing.

That’s why Adolf D’souza from Juhu looks more significant than he is or believes himself to be. D’souza won from the upmarket and prestigious Juhu in an unprecedented election move. He was the consensus candidate from Ward 63, approved by people from high-rises and slum bastis who appealed to all political parties to desist from putting up their own. D’souza has a good track record of doing citizens' work in the area but typically no party extended support or resources to him for the campaign. He worked out of somebody’s garage, had the area’s veteran doctors, teachers and actors join him in campaigning and motivated young students to pitch in for backroom work. Now, he will work with 37 Area Sabha Representatives, each representing about 2000 people in a locality. D’souza will have to listen to ASRs who are the voice of people. With such a network in place, he can get heard even as an Independent in the din of the Sena-BJP led House in the BMC. Actor Shabana Azmi, who backed D’souza to the hilt, believes that his victory is a sign of changing political culture. For Mumbai, D’souza is a start that citizens are willing to work the system without political parties. A warning bell for the Congress,NCP, and even the Sena-BJP.