Why Shiv Sena's 'beyond Maharashtra' plan is causing unease in BJP

Eknath Shinde (L) and Devendra Fadnavis (File)

The Shiv Sena, led by Eknath Shinde, aspires to be a national party. In the recently launched membership enrollment drive, the party is focusing on attracting workers from outside Maharashtra as well.

This move is particularly significant in the context of the recent discord between the BJP and Shiv Sena in the Mahayuti alliance due to a series of contentious issues. The undivided Shiv Sena had long been exploring expansion beyond the state. However, its alliance partner, the BJP, always discouraged the move, fearing that it would give rise to a rival in the form of another saffron party.

Last Monday, a meeting of Shiv Sena leaders, including present and former MPs, was convened in Delhi to discuss the party’s expansion. Rahul Shewale, the party’s former MP, confirmed the development and said that the worker registration process has been initiated across the country. According to Shewale, the party is strategizing to expand itself, and in the future, some events will be organized to that effect.

The Shiv Sena, founded by the late Bal Thackeray in the mid-60s, initially championed the cause of jobs for the local Marathi population. Although the party established itself as a force in Maharashtra’s political landscape, the Marathi issue did not resonate strongly with people outside Mumbai, Thane, and Konkan. Hence, the party adopted the Hindutva ideology in the mid-eighties by joining hands with the BJP and supporting the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation. This helped Shiv Sena grow in Marathwada as well as in northern Maharashtra.

Although the Shiv Sena became a formidable force in Maharashtra, Bal Thackeray had plans to expand the party into other parts of the country. To connect with people in the Hindi heartland, he launched the Hindi edition of Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece Saamana and nominated Sanjay Nirupam, a Bihari, to the Rajya Sabha. In 1996, a grand Uttar Bhartiya Mahasammelan was organized at Mumbai’s Andheri Sports Complex, where Bal Thackeray addressed the North Indian audience in Hindi.

Sanjay Raut, an MP from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, confirmed to journalists a few months ago that Bal Thackeray had envisioned Shiv Sena as a national party. However, the BJP was not in favor of it.

According to Raut, after the Ayodhya movement, there was a wave of support for Bal Thackeray, and he had become a superstar in the eyes of people in North India. Thackeray had announced that Shiv Sena would contest elections in Uttar Pradesh. When the news reached BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he called Thackeray, requesting him to drop the idea. Vajpayee reasoned that if Shiv Sena contested in UP, it would lead to a division of Hindu votes.

Pramod Mahajan, the late BJP leader, also unscrupulously played a role in keeping Shiv Sena away from North Indian states during Vajpayee’s tenure as prime minister. Whenever Thackeray planned a tour outside Maharashtra, Mahajan reached out to him and dissuaded him from traveling outside the state, citing “intelligence inputs” about threats to his life. The plans were canceled after Mahajan’s call.

The undivided Shiv Sena had some presence in Hindi-speaking states like Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh but had meager electoral gains. The only assembly seat the party won outside Maharashtra was in Akbarpur, Uttar Pradesh. Pawan Pandey, a local strongman, won the seat on a Shiv Sena ticket but later joined Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

In the past, Shiv Sena made its presence felt in Delhi through incidents of vandalism, such as digging up the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium pitch to oppose an India-Pakistan cricket match and attacking Pakistani and Kashmiri artists who came to perform in the capital.

In the recent Delhi assembly elections, while Uddhav Thackeray’s faction supported AAP, the one led by Eknath Shinde stood with the BJP. However, Shinde’s plan to expand the party is unlikely to sit well with the BJP and may further aggravate the acrimony between the two parties.