Central Hall – Redux BJP?

Mumbai: Denied power and left lip-smacking after an ideological coup engineered by its one time ally the Shiv Sena with the help of its new found Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), all that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can do now besides twiddling its thumbs is to help itself generously with an jumbo-sized state executive body.

At the height of the Assembly elections in 2019, a reluctant Chandrakant Patil was made to accept the mantle of the state president. As was the case then as is the case now, the ticket distribution then bore the stamp of then chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and so it does now in the state executive which bears an unmistakable stamp of Fadnavis who is now the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly and the de-facto boss of the party in the state.

The only redemption factor in all this is that attempts have been made to mend fences with sulking former senior ministers who were weeded out of the equation before the elections and made to pay the price for daring to cross the path of the boss himself.

At the hindsight of the elections leaving out arch rivals Eknath Khadse, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Vinod Tawde and Prakash Mehta appears to have had its impact on the poll prospects of the party. In a bid to placate a sulking Pankaja Munde and assuage the party high command, she has been assured of a larger role at the national level. While her younger sister and Lok Sabha MP Dr Pritam Munde has been drafted in the state politics.

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It does indicate a role reversal for the two sisters and appears to be aimed at ending the sibling rivalry between the elder sister and her estranged cousin brother, Dhananjay Munde. Pankaja Munde is being catapulted to the national stage which once her charismatic late father Gopinath Munde had within a short span had endeared him to. But, by elevating her to the national stage, is her potential threat being taken out of the equation? Only time will tell if this really takes shape.

Besides the strong sizeable 33 percent presence of women in party rank and file, otherwise the rest of the new state party apparatus looks more like a congregation of forgotten party old guards like Shobhatai Fadnavis, Jaisingrao Gaikwad-Patil, Dr Madhav Kinhalkar and others who have also been made special invitees. All this amidst the tall claims that new faces have been given the preference.

Although attempts have been made to assimilate party imports like Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Madhukar Pichad and Laxman Dhoble, it was expected that after having made the supreme sacrifice for Chandrakant Patil, Medha Kulkarni would have been accommodated in the party’s highest decision making body. Neither does Shivendra Raje Bhosale who is apparently believed to be having second thoughts.

The developments within the BJP shall depend upon how the differences within the MVA constituents pan out in the coming days and months. Already the Congress and the NCP are bitterly complaining about the haughtiness of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

Focus of the rejig in the state BJP does appear to be geared towards the 2022 municipal elections in Mumbai and Thane and keeping its flock together. With the party top brass sending clear indications that it is not in favor of invoking Article 356 (Presidents Rule), it will be a herculean task for Fadnavis to make his “I shall come back” promise into reality. Something is surely bound to snap between the BJP and MVA, or within the two camps in coming days. If not it shall spell trouble for the BJP.