The question at the top of everyone’s mind following the death of Balasaheb Thackeray is this: Will the Shiv Sena still be a force to reckon with after his time?
Though the Shiv Sena remains a power to reckon with in Maharashtra, there is little doubt that it is a power that is waning. In the last seven-eight years, there has been no Shiv Sena agitation that has changed the course of an event. Barring Mumbai and Thane municipal corporations, there are no major elections that Shiv Sena has won. There is nothing that happened in Mumbai because Shiv Sena wanted it and there is nothing that did not happen because Shiv Sena did not want it.
Today, Shiv Sena has 45 MLAs in Maharashtra Assembly, which is their lowest number since 1991. After losing power in the state Assembly in 1999, the party for the first time in 2009 ceased to be the main Opposition party.
Even in the 2012 BMC elections, Shiv Sena won 76 seats in Mumbai, which is considered to be its bastion. These are the lowest numbers that Sena has got since 1981.
Political observer Hemant Desai says that Sena continues to depend on Bal Thackeray. “Figures tell the story. There is absolutely no doubt that Shiv Sena’s power is waning. Though it is still a force, but every election since 2004 has proved that Shiv Sena’s influence is declining. Balasaheb remains Shiv Sena’s bramhastra. The party needed to depend on him to campaign in the last elections even though he was not keeping well. No other Sena leader has been able to strengthen the party in the last eight years,” he said.
There have been several instances in the last few years when Shiv Sena tried to flex its muscle, but with little success. When Rahul Gandhi visited Mumbai in February 2010, Bal Thackeray had asked his partymen to greet the Congress leader with black flags. The Sena leader was upset with Mr Gandhi’s remarks that “North Indian NSG commandoes” fought Pakistani terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008.
However, Mr Gandhi’s Mumbai visit under heavy police security, went off without any untoward incident. Few hundred Shiv Sainiks showed black flags to Mr Gandhi from a distance from where he could not have seen them.
In the same month, Shiv Sena announced that it will not allow Shah Rukh Khan’s movie My Name Is Khan to protest his statement that “Pakistan is a good neighbour”. Though Shiv Sainiks tried to stop screening of the movie at a few places on the first couple of days, the movie continued to run across Mumbai. People made it a point to watch the movie, in part to defy Sena’s call.
“Sena’s muscle power has reduced in last eight years, particularly after Narayan Rane and Raj Thackeray quit the party. From gram panchayat to municipal corporation to state assembly, Sena’s performance in elections is continuously on the decline, which shows the party’s waning influence,” says Desai. However, senior journalist Pratap Thorat said that Sena’s performance in elections is not an indicator of its muscle power. “In my opinion, Sena’s muscle power has only increased after the party shifted from Marathi manoos plank to Hindutva agenda. Earlier, Balasaheb had only Marathi youth following him, but today he has followers from other communities also. We should not forget that Shiv Sena was in power in Maharashtra for five years. Apart from muscle power, Shiv Sena’s money power has also increased. The sources of their income are municipal corporations of Mumbai and Thane. The party also gets funds from businessmen through its network. So it has more muscle and money than it had 20 years back.”
Though Thorat agreed that the party’s strength in state assembly and local bodies has reduced, he said that it is not an indicator of the Sena’s power on the streets of Mumbai. “Balasaheb always knew the pulse of the youth better than any other leader. Young people could relate to him even when he was 86. Because he had tremendous understanding about what the young generation wants and in his speeches he says what they expect him to say. That is why Sena continues to wield power on the streets.”
“As far as election results are concerned, even Congress, which is the largest party in the state, has 82 seats. Therefore Shiv Sena’s 45 seats cannot be considered a small number. In terms of vote shares, there is not more than two-three per cent difference in votes garnered by Congress-NCP and Shiv Sena-BJP,” Thorat added.
The possibility of a patch-up between Raj and Uddhav Thackeray has been talked about almost from the time they split. The prospects of the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena coming together has perhaps grown. Balasaheb paved the way for that. Raj and Uddhav, who had stopped talking to each other, are now there for each other during times of need.
After Uddhav had surgery recently, Raj drove him home from the hospital. When Balasaheb fell ill, Raj was almost camping at Matoshree. That the two will move together on a common platform once again seems likely. The question is, though, will go the whole way and merge the two parties or will they only support each other as allies. In either case, together, in a post-Bal Thackeray universe, they could reclaim his legacy.