After the Assembly polls setback, Sena (UBT) leaders are reconsidering alliance decisions and strategy shifts.
New Delhi: After a significant loss in Maharashtra Assembly elections, where the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray won only 20 Assembly seats, the future of the party is seen to be challenging as the leaders within the Shiv Sena (UBT) have started to question the party’s acceptance among their traditional vote bank in the state, and are contemplating to reconsider their position in the alliance.
Shiv Sena, founded by Balasaheb Thackeray, has always played a major role in Maharashtra politics. However, after the split (led by Eknath Shinde) and Uddhav Thackeray’s rebuilding of the party, the Uddhav-led faction (considered the succeeding group of Balasaheb’s legacy) faced its first setback. The party could only win 20 Assembly seats and also received less than 10% vote share in the 2024 Assembly elections. In the 2019 Assembly elections, the party had obtained around 16% vote share and pocketed 56 Assembly seats.
Moreover, as there is growing opposition of leaders within the Uddhav camp against keeping up the alliance with the centrist parties, the party insiders think that Uddhav may reconsider his position within the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the alliance with Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). A lot, according to party insiders, will depend on the assessment and the feedback of why the alliance, which won 30 seats out of 48 constituencies in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, could not make it to the Assembly.
A party insider said, “In a recent meeting, Uddhav Thackeray and Sanjay Raut had solidly backed the idea of continuing with the MVA alliance. If the loss signals a lack of support from this coalition, Uddhav could explore new ways or even recalibrate his stance to go solo since the Municipal corporation elections are impending. The 10 out of the 20 seats they have won come from the Mumbai region, which speaks a lot of their popularity in the capital of the state.”
According to senior leaders in NCP and Congress, the Uddhav camp has become vulnerable to another split in its Lok Sabha grouping, as its under-10 tally in the Parliament would make it easy for the MPs to defect and escape the anti-defection law. However, the political analysts think that there is no urgency for the BJP to lure the parliamentarians from other parties, as they have addressed the cracks in their coalition and are set to complete their full term until the 2029 elections.
A senior office bearer of the Congress party in the state said, “No one’s politics is ever dead. We cannot say that Uddhav’s politics is dead. The Shiv Sena led by Uddhav has become weak right now. It may have become vulnerable. But Uddhav is a prominent leader. He will not let it go just like that. He can still keep his flock together as local body polls are approaching and he will instruct his party to work towards it.”
As the party had been clear about its ideological stance, the alliance with Congress, however, is said to have altered its established Hindutva vote bank. To stave off the perception of its unnatural alliance with the Congress, the party could go solo in municipal elections, and call for a more linear vision based on its Hindutva ideology.