The party may well be over

Bal Thackeray faces the toughest of times as rebellion comes from within and without

Gajanan Khergamker Mumbai

When Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray wrote an edit in a mid-December issue of his party spokespaper Saamna, it wasn't the same familiar roar. It was muffled with a thick veil of insecurity. "I want to tell the media that whatever is in your minds is not going to happen," he said before going on to spell out, "Shiv Sena is invincible and indestructible." And then, he went on to say that,

"I have lived all my life like a sanyasi," referring to his having controlled the party's remote without ever contesting a single poll. He also added, "The more you try to suppress the Shiv Sena, the more it will rise."

Evidently, Saheb was on the back foot. After two upheavals — one from his north Indian ally Sanjay Nirupam who shared a relationship of convenience with the party, and another from Narayan Rane, who inflicted the worst possible blow on the Tiger — this time, the rebellion has come from within. After spending 18 long years serving the Shiv Sena's interests, nephew Raj Thackeray quit that membership and vacated the posts of leader of allied Sena organisations — Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena and Shiv Udyog Sena.

It's a strategic move that could well change the face of the Shiv Sena's future. Raj Thackeray has reserved announcing the constitution, ideology and future agenda of his political outfit until after his Maharashtra tour slated for January 2006.

Shiv Sena's relations with the first to defect from the party, Sanjay Nirupam, were based on mutual benefit that fetched a political platform for loudmouth Nirupam who caused more damage than good with his public statements. For the Shiv Sena, it was a safe arrangement that positioned the party as one that was soft on north Indians despite its strong Marathi Manus flavour. However, when Sanjay Nirupam chose to speak at length about nepotism and corruption within the party, targeting the issue of a huge allotment of Reliance Infocomm shares to the Bharatiya Janata Party's Pramod Mahajan, it got too hot for Shiv Sena to handle. To prevent any embarrassment to his coalition partner, Thackeray asked Nirupam to desist but he refused. There were a series of rebellions at several levels of the party but it didn't quite matter: Nirupam left and the monolith couldn't care less.

The worst possible blow came from dissident Sena leader Narayan Rane, who joined the Congress and went on to retain his hold on the Malvan Assembly seat doubling his victory margin. Rane was expected to win but the rout spelt doom for the Sena. The Thackeray loyalist's departure from the party and subsequent victory on his own steam indicated that the supremo's popularity was on the wane.

The election slogan: Narayan Rane angaar hai, baaki sab bhangaar hai ("Narayan Rane burns like a fire, the rest are all junk") almost seemed to prove prophetic. What made matters worse was Raj's resignation in the wake of  Sena's defeat.

In a firmly worded letter after the Konkan debacle, Raj wrote to Thackeray senior asking for an explanation for the Sena rout. Without directly naming Uddhav, Raj apparently said that a "sycophantic quartet" had been misguiding Thackeray. The reference was to Uddhav and three other Sainiks, including his aide Milind Narvekar and Sena leader Subhash Desai.