#BMCElection | Who dares wins: Thackeray & Fadnavis have taken potentially game-changing gambles

Mumbai has voted, and in about 36 hours, we will know where its heart lay. The voting percentage has been high, almost 10 per cent more than in 2012, a trend that is typically attributable to voters’ desire for change. In short, anti-incumbency.

By that logic, this should mean curtains for the Shiv Sena, which has progressively been winning fewer seats in elections since 2001. Surprisingly, though, exit polls by our sister television channel Zee 24 Taas and another media house suggest that the Sena will not only emerge as the single largest party in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), but will also better its tally from the existing 78 to over 90 seats.

On the other hand, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who in partnering with the Shiv Sena has been riding the proverbial tiger– ironically, a Sena symbol – decided to challenge his alliance partner on the issue of transparent administration. It was a big gamble, considering the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with 122 seats in a 288-member Legislative Assembly, needs the Sena’s 63 to keep its government afloat. Nonetheless, Fadnavis fought hard and, going by the exit polls, BJP will likely emerge as the second largest party in the BMC with over 80 corporators.

So who has won?

As things stand, both have won the battle, but lost the war.

The Sena may win the BMC yet again, but at a price: it has diluted its identity as a party for Marathi maanoos. It may posture as an aggressive Hindutva party, but at the core of its beating heart, Mumbai, it was always a Marathi party.

In the 2017 civic polls, however, the Sena eschewed that sentiment and projected itself as the party that delivers on its word. The party’s campaign hashtags were in English, its radio spots in Hindi..

It reached out to Gujarati community, traditionally the BJP’s voter base with a considerable demographic and financial presence in Mumbai.

Uddhav Thackeray’s decision to break the party’s alliance with the BJP in the BMC was a gamble he was forced to take. But his decision to say no to estranged cousin Raj Thackeray was a calculated move. Even though this was a question of his survival, Uddhav decided to slug it out entirely on his own. There was no charismatic Bal Thackeray whose writ was law in the city when he was alive, there was huge anti-incumbency (almost 25 years of rule), and, above all, the possibility he could lose it all, having already been reduced to junior partner at the Assembly level.

But he risked going it alone, and going by the exit polls – which one must caution are prone to be off the mark – he may yet have swung the battle in the Sena’s favour.

Uddhav can be forgiven a feeling of déjà vu if he can pull it off this time.  A newly-selected party chief in 2001, the Thackeray scion faced an unprecedented revolt from party satraps after father Bal Thackeray decided to stay in the background and test his son’s leadership skills. Uddhav crossed the proverbial Rubicon and established himself as a more able heir than his cousin Raj, who eventually parted ways to form the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).

In the opposite camp, Fadnavis decided to take a gamble too, by nudging the Sena out of the alliance. His stress on transparent administration, given consistent allegations of corruption in the Sena-ruled BMC, unnerved the Sena and instead of waiting for the BJP to call it off like after the 2014 Assembly polls, the party decided to move on.

Fadnavis made the battle for Mumbai a prestige issue and even if his party finishes second, the BJP will be a strong force to reckon with in Mumbai. Even if the Sena returns to power, it will find it harder to run roughshod over the city as it has all these years. Mumbai, at last, will have a strong opposition voice to keep a check on the civic administration, something that was badly needed.

However, if one were to consider the long-term political scene in Maharashtra, Fadnavis has unsuspectingly allowed Sena to show its might. If the Sena does better than the BJP, it will be emboldened to assert itself at the state level.

Both Uddhav and Fadnavis dared each other, and both may have won. We will know in 36 hours.