The elections for the richest municipal body in the country and power centre of Shiv Sena, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, are expected to be held in February 2022. Shiv Sena knows very well that it is set to lose the BMC election if it goes alone, and losing BMC means it has no political future in the state. Thus, it has started warming up to BJP leaders.
Sanjay Raut, the senior leader and spokesperson of Shiv Sena met Mumbai BJP President Ashish Shelar and had coffee with him. Although Raut declined that there were any political motives behind the meeting. “We may have political and ideological differences, but if we come face-to-face at public functions, we will cordially greet each other. I have had coffee with Shelar openly,” Raut told news agency PTI on Sunday.
Various media agencies have already reported that there are ongoing talks between BJP and Shiv Sena and this has put the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government on edge. A statement by Devendra Fadnavis has further heated up the discussion about Shiv Sena coming back to the alliance.
“The BJP and the Shiv Sena are not enemies though there are differences of opinions. An appropriate decision will be taken as per situation,” the former chief minister said while responding to a query on whether there is a possibility of the two former allies coming together again.
It is pertinent to mention here that the alliance between BJP and Shiv Sena broke becasue the latter asked for the CM chair for two and a half years despite being the junior party in the alliance with only 56 seats compared to 105 seats of BJP. Moreover, it also put the condition that Shiv Sena must have CM in the initial two and a half years and the second half can go with BJP, and this led to the breaking of the alliance.
However, given the fact that Uddhav Thackeray would have already completed more than two years as CM by the time BMC elections are announced, he would be happy to hand over the CM chair to a BJP leader for the rest of the period of the legislative assembly. This would save the face for both parties and both of them claim to have not made a compromise.
Earlier, Congress had decided to contest the BMC elections alone. Party leader Ravi Raja had announced the party’s decision to go solo as he stated that there is no need for a tie-up with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena.
The Shiv Sena enjoys complete dominance over it and has been ruling the civic body uninterrupted since the past 30 years with the BJP as its junior partner for most of the period.
However, Sena’s lust for the Chief Minister’s chair has changed the equations. Such is the inflated ego of the Sena who believes that Mumbai is their heirloom, the BJP-Sena in 2017 who at that time were in an alliance in the then Fadnavis government, didn’t fight the BMC elections together as Sena only agreed to give a handful of seats to the BJP to ensure that the latter remains as a junior partner in BMC, having lost that status in the Maharashtra government.
The Sena was expecting to romp home in the 227-member civic body but was served a rude shock as the BJP secured a whopping 82 seats with the Sena securing 86 seats. This was a watershed moment in Mumbai politics as the BJP had came close to loosen the Sena’s iron grip on the city.
The BMC elections are very crucial for Shiv Sena becasue Mumbai is the hub of Shiv Sena’s political activities and its voter base.
If BJP makes effort this time, it will easily push Shiv Sena to second place and snatch the crown jewel of the party. Losing BMC would mean the source of the party funding would dry up for Shiv Sena and its political survival would be at risk, and therefore, it would probably make an alliance with BJP before the BMC elections are announced and ditch MVA.