With Thackeray-Pawar stripped of their parties, BJP’s revenge for 2019 is now complete

MUMBAI: Ahead of the assembly elections of 2019, Sharad Pawar, along with some Shiv Sena leaders had one aim—to not allow Devendra Fadnavis to be sworn in again as the chief minister. They did this by breaking the Sena away from the then ruling alliance and forming a three-party government in the state with the Congress. The central BJP leadership took it very seriously and vowed to “teach a lesson” to the two heavyweight leaders behind the coup—Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray.

If the incidents of the past few months are any indication, the BJP’s political revenge appears to be complete. Pawar and Thackeray have lost their parties to their lieutenants, and the largest beneficiary of this is the BJP.

According to BJP insiders, the lost opportunity to form the government in Maharashtra for the second term seriously irked the party’s central leadership. Pawar’s alleged backtracking on joining hands with the BJP on several occasions up until then upset it more. This was evident from the verbal attack on the Sena by the BJP’s key strategist Amit Shah—the union minister in harsh language vowed to decimate the party and asked the state leadership to “teach them a lesson”.

After forming the government with Eknath Shinde’s faction of the Sena in 2022, Shah, during his Mumbai visit last year, reiterated the sentiment of betrayal. In an internal meeting with the state and Mumbai leaders of the party, he reportedly said, “Insults can be tolerated but not backstabbing.” It is no secret that both Shinde and Ajit Pawar were provided with every kind of assistance by state BJP leaders to split the party.

A top BJP leader said that after 2019, the central leadership shortlisted Pawar and Thackeray as its prime enemies and vowed to trounce them. “The party leadership was upset with Thackeray for backstabbing it for no reason,” he said. “Thackeray did not even respond to calls from BJP leaders for a reconciliation. He also said that he was ditched by the BJP leadership after being promised an equal sharing of the chief minister’s post.” The leader claimed that this was a “narrative” and not reality.

The leader added that the central leadership was equally upset with Pawar for ditching the party on several occasions after holding closed-door talks with BJP leaders for an alliance. “We were in talks with Pawar in 2014, 2017 and even 2019, when talks were at an advanced stage, but ultimately we were ditched,” he said. “Moreover, Pawar was the architect of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government in the state and it had come at the cost of the BJP government’s second term. None of this was taken lightly by the central leadership.”

BJP leader Atul Bhatkhalkar claimed that the splits in Thackeray’s and Pawar’s parties had nothing to do with the BJP. “This is not about revenge or anything like that,” he said. “This is a lesson for parties, especially family-led parties, that dissent cannot be suppressed for long. It was the dissent within the NCP and Shiv Sena that led to the split in both parties.”

Mumbai-based political analyst Hemant Desai said that the BJP had apparently benefited from the split in the Sena and NCP but whether it would continue to benefit was doubtful. “It all depends on how powerfully the two leaders whose parties have been broken set the narrative ball rolling among people,” he said. “If the leaders start playing the victim card and get sympathy and support from voters, it could go against the BJP. As of today, the split in the two parties will play in favour of the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections to achieve its target of 450 seats.”