The much-awaited verdict of the Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly, Rahul Narwekar, was immediately dubbed as ‘a shock and setback’ for the Uddhav Thackeray camp, but this was exactly what the Thackeray camp had expected.
A livid Sena (UBT) asserted that the decision is biased and, by late evening, it had announced that they would challenge the decision in the Supreme Court. Now, the politically crucial part is whether Uddhav Thackeray is able to leverage this development to his advantage and swing the hearts of voters all over Maharashtra and generate a mass wave of sympathy.
The Thackeray camp had been repeatedly alleging that Narwekar was delaying the hearings in the disqualification matter beyond a reasonable limit and had filed petitions in the apex court over it.
The dilly-dallying by Narwekar, followed by two visits to Chief Minister Shinde’s residence in the past week for discussion, was hyped by the Uddhav camp as a case of ‘‘a judge visiting an accused’’.
This, according to the Uddhav camp, fuelled the suspicion in their minds that the Speaker was likely to deliver a verdict in favour of Shinde. Now, Uddhav has announced that his party will again take the matter to the Supreme Court and challenge the Speaker’s decision.
‘‘This is blatant injustice: we had suspected that the Speaker would be biased. But he has gone beyond the guidelines set by the Supreme Court. We will go to the apex court and will also take this matter to the people and tell them how those in power are attempting to finish Balasaheb Thackeray’s Shiv Sena,’’ Uddhav said, speaking to the media late on Wednesday.
The Shiv Sena has traditionally thrived on emotional appeals and creating sympathy waves, by playing the victim card. Over the decades, the party grew by basically portraying how the Marathi-speaking population in Mumbai had become a ‘victim’ of ‘aggressive outsiders’. It is now obvious that ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Uddhav will pitch for sympathy. His public narrative will be based on how he has been cornered by the Shinde camp and an aggressive BJP.
Just over a year ago, in the by-elections for Andheri East assembly constituency in Mumbai, the impact of the Shinde group breaking away was felt. There was so much sympathy for Uddhav that the BJP decided to withdraw from the elections, as its ground surveys indicated that Uddhav could perhaps beat them because of the emotions stirred up in loyal Shiv Sena activists.
On Wednesday, NCP founder Sharad Pawar came out in support of Uddhav and spoke with the media, saying his party would take the issue to the ‘people’s court’ and Uddhav should go to the Supreme Court in appeal against the verdict. ‘‘The speaker has not followed the principles mentioned in the Tenth
Schedule. The election of the party whip in the House is done by the entire party, not the legislative party alone, so how can the election of the Shinde camp whip be termed valid by the Speaker, ’’ questioned Pawar.
By all appearances, it looks like Uddhav is set to draw as much political advantage from this issue as is possible. His Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) partners too seem eager to piggyback on the sympathy wave, if Uddhav can successfully create it. The question now is whether the BJP and Shinde can counter it with the temple wave being unleashed by their camp.
