Revision as of 20:12, 19 May 2021

BJP- Shiv Sena alliances

Ambarish Mishra, Sena won’t ally with BJP in 2019 polls, January 24, 2018: The Times of India

Seats, contested and won- Lok Sabha elections (1991-2014) and Assembly elections (1990-2014)
From: Ambarish Mishra, Sena won’t ally with BJP in 2019 polls, January 24, 2018: The Times of India

See graphic:

Seats, contested and won- Lok Sabha elections (1991-2014) and Assembly elections (1990-2014)

Shiv Sena, BJP’s oldest — and for 25 years its sturdiest — ally, announced it would go solo for Lok Sabha and Maharashtra polls in 2019. While Sena’s newly constituted national executive passed a resolution to this effect, Sena president

“This regime thrives only on hollow ad campaigns. It needs to be brought down,” Uddhav said at a party conclave that saw his son, Aaditya, being elevated to the status of a ‘neta’ in Sena.

Sena to poach Hindutva radicals

Though Sena is not withdrawing from the Modi government or the BJP-led state government as of now, its stand, and especially Uddhav’s call to defeat the Modi regime, is certain to worsen Sena-BJP ties, rocky since mid-2014, and raise doubts over Sena’s role in the BJP-led NDA at the Centre.

Though the allies fought the 2014 LS polls unitedly, Matoshree snapped ties with BJP for the October 2014 state elections, only to later join the Devendra Fadnavis-led government as BJP’s junior partner. The tie-up came apart again for the 2017 Mumbai civic polls where BJP fell just 2 seats short of the Sena tally.

Uddhav also spelt out Sena’s expansion plan with militant Hindutva as its plank. Addressing party functionaries at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel stadium in Worli, he said, “We will expand across the country. Hereafter we will contest every election in every state with Hindutva as our mantra,” he said.

Uddhav’s gameplan is to poach on the radical quotient in the BJP- R-S-S ahead of the 2019 polls by flaunting aggressive Hindutva and projecting BJP as a feeble party with little or no legitimate claim to Hindutva, said Sena watchers. They pointed out that a section in the Sangh Parivar is unhappy with the Modi regime for being “soft” on issues such as Kashmir, Ram Janmabhoomi, Article 370 and even triple talaq.

The Sena also passed a resolution to win “at least 25 LS seats (out of 48 in the state) and 150 assembly seats (out of 288)” in 2019.

Raising the Kashmir issue, Uddhav said the nation needed an aggressive leader like Sardar Patel. In a dig at PM Modi who routinely heaps praise on India’s first home minister, he said, “Had the Sardar been alive today, he would have resolved the Kashmir issue and also the Pakistan issue once and for all.”

Uddhav also criticised Modi for taking Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to Ahmedabad for a kite-flying session recently. “Why Ahmedabad? The PM should have taken his Israeli counterpart to Srinagar to hoist the national flag there,” he said.

Accusing the Modi government of issuing “hollow threats” to Pakistan, Uddhav said those in power have no empathy for Indian soldiers killed along the border and in terror attacks. “It’s high time the Pakistan problem is put to an end forever. But our leaders have become ‘mastawaal’ (power-drunk and reckless),” he said.

He also slammed Union minister Nitin Gadkari for being critical of the Navy and chided state BJP minister Chandrakant Patil for praising the Kannada language in Belgaum, an area at the centre of the Maharashtra-Karnataka border row. “Patil should have spared a thought for Marathis who have been living along the border,” said Uddhav, indicating that along with Hindutva, the Sena would also sharpen its Marathi plank.

Women

1962-2014: Women MLAs

Bhavika Jain1, Sep 28, 2019: The Times of India

1962-2014: Women MLAs in the Maharashtra assembly.
From: Bhavika Jain1, Sep 28, 2019: The Times of India

Women comprise nearly 50% of the total voter base in Maharashtra and yet represent just 7% of the current Vidhan Sabha strength.

Of the 288 seats of the Maharashtra assembly, 20 are occupied by women today. This abysmal figure, though, is still a record for the highest number of women MLAs in the state.

An analysis of women’s representation in the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha shows that while female voters are increasing steadily, parties are still shying away from fielding women as candidates.

In the 2014 elections, of the total 4,119 candidates in the fray, 277 were women, 20 of whom won. This is still an improvement over 2009, when there were just 11 women in Vidhan Bhavan; 211 women had contested then.

“We have been agitating within the party, even though multiple forums have been seeking more tickets for women. They talk about winnability but if parties don’t allow women to contest, how can they prove that they can win elections? It’s still a male-dominated space,” said BJP spokesperson Shaina NC. She said handing out tickets to daughters, wives or daughters-in-law of senior male politicians does not do justice to women workers.

A senior woman politician said though the number of women voters is rising, there is a question over how many choose a candidate on their own and are not influenced by the political views of their husbands and sons. “The day a woman’s vote is not influenced by her male relatives and she votes for a female candidate putting her trust in her to raise her issues, that’s when parties will be forced to give equal representation to women,” said the politician who has served for 25 years.

In 1972, there was not a single woman MLA in Maharashtra. Of the 56 women who contested not one won, even though there were 1.3 crore women voters, of whom 71.3 lakh voted. In 1967, nine of the 19 women candidates won. Likewise, in 1962, 13 of 36 women candidates won. Over the past four assembly elections from 1995 to 2009, only 11 to 12 women were elected in each term. The highest number till 2014 was 19 in 1980 or 6.6% of the total strength.

“The is a need for parties to give more opportunities to women working with them,” said Yashomati Thakur, a Congress secretary and MLA from Teosa. She said there is only one woman with a cabinet rank in the state government—Pankaja Munde. “This says a lot,” she said.

2018

Sena backs Cong for by- poll

Prafulla Marpakwar, Sena backs Congman for Maha bypoll, May 11, 2018: The Times of India

Shiv Sena has supported the candidature of a Congress nominee, Vishwajeet Kadam, for the May 28 Pulus-Kadegaon assembly bypoll. The BJP has fielded Sangram Deshmukh.

Sena said it was a gesture by party chief Uddhav Thackeray since Kadam is the son of late senior Congressman Patangrao Kadam. “It’s a tradition of the Sena. Whenever the son or daughter of a deceased legislator contests a bypoll, Sena lends support,” said a party spokesman.

Maharashtra legislative council biennial elections

BJP & Sena win 2 seats each, NCP 1 in MLC polls, May 25, 2018: The Times of India

The results of the Maharashtra legislative council biennial elections, 2018
From: BJP & Sena win 2 seats each, NCP 1 in MLC polls, May 25, 2018: The Times of India

The BJP and Sena bagged 2 seats each and the NCP picked up 1 seat in the Maharashtra legislative council in the biennial elections. Counting of votes has been deferred in 1 constituency.

The Raigad-RatnagiriSindhudurg seat was won by NCP candidate Aniket Tatkare, son of former minister and NCP heavyweight Sunil Tatkare, by defeating Sena’s Rajiv Sable. Aniket secured 620 votes against Sable’s 306. In the Amravati seat, minister of state (industries and environment) Pravin Pote secured 458 of the 488 votes polled. Congress nominee Anil Madhogadhiya managed to get 17 votes. “I thank all the voters for reposing their faith in me.

It is avote to the leadership of BJP in the state and at the Centre,” Pote said. In Wardha-Chandrapur -Gadchiroli, the tussle was close between BJP’s Ambatkar, who bagged 528 votes, and the Congress nominee Indrakumar Saraf, who got 491 votes. In the the Parbhani-Hingoli local self-governing body constituency election, the Shiv Sena sprang a surprise despite the numbers favouring the Congress-NCP combine.

Viplav Bajoriya of Shiv Sena defeated Suresh Deshmukh of Congress by a margin of 35 votes in the local selfgoverning body constituency election for Parbhani-Hingoli districts with the help of crossvoting. Viplav, who is the son of Sena’s sitting MLC Gopikisan Bajoriya from Akola-Buldhana-Washim local bodies’ constituency, secured 256 votes as against 221 received by Deshmukh. BJP’s plans to take on Shiv Sena in the Nashik local selfgoverning bodies constituency polls failed miserably.

Despite being its ally, BJP had decided to vote against the Sena and back the NCP candidate. The move was seen as a retaliatory step since Sena had fielded a candidate for the Palghar Lok Sabha bypolls.

Shiv Sena candidate Narendra Darade defeated NCP nominee Shiva-ji Sahane by a margin of 167 votes. Meanwhile, the Election Commission has deferred counting in the Osmanabad-Latur-Beed seat over legal wrangles.

The deadlock over counting of votes for the election continued on Thursday, when the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court scheduled the hearing of review petition in the matter before the regular bench on June 6