Enemy’s enemy is a friend. Well, it did not take long for Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena to go soft on the secular Congress for the sake of power. Likewise, it took no time for cousin Raj Thackeray to shed to embrace a pro-CAA and anti-Bangladeshi campaign.
Raj Thackeray’s show of strength last Sunday in Mumbai when tens of thousands of supporters marched into Mumbai chanting pro-Hindutva slogans was clearly meant to fill the space vacated by Uddhav after he signed up with the Congress for power-sharing.
However hard he might now protest that the Sena has not abandoned Hindutva, in the popular mind he has compromise with the ideological foes.
The BJP could not have been unhappy at the discomfiture of Uddhav seeing the huge crowd the estranged cousin had mustered to announce a new turn in his chequered political career.
A forceful speaker, the head of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena rubbed it in further. Son, Amit, would henceforth be the young face of the party, a direct counter to Uddhav’s son, Aditya, now a high-profile member in his father’s government.
Whether or not there was a BJP hand in the success of the Sunday show by the MNS is irrelevant. The fact is the new stance of MNS is bound to make it harder with each passing day for Uddhav to simultaneously sail in two boats. Sooner or later, contradictions in the ruling alliance will come to the fore, especially because Uddhav continues to swear by Savarkar, Hindutva and other totems of the right while these are anathema to the Congress.
Raj Thackeray might have failed to win elections, but in his latest role he may well succeed in sowing the seeds of confusion in the unnatural alliance in Maharashtra.
