BJP Trumps Thackeray’s Sena

Bal Thackeray, by then hailed as Hindu Hridaysamrat, earned this grandiose title amid allegations of the Shiv Sena’s role in sparking the 1984 Hindu-Muslim riots in Bhiwandi, which claimed 288 lives. During the 1987 by-polls, the communally charged Shiv Sena was still an unrecognised political outfit and did not even have an official election symbol to back its Vile Parle candidate Dr Ramesh Prabhu. But it did have a communal ace up its sleeve to bolster Prabhu’s campaign.

The 1987 polls marked a turning point in Indian politics, unveiling the growing frenzy of right-wing ideology. Thackeray’s incendiary tactics, urging Hindus to vote on communal lines, secured Prabhu a resounding victory, but cost the Sena chief a six-year ban for violating Election Commission rules. The win underscored Hindutva’s potent appeal, striking a chord with disenchanted Hindus, in the aftermath of the Bhiwandi riots.

Around that time, the newly minted Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), seeking a foothold in Maharashtra, solidified ties with the Sena. By 1989, their formal alliance ushered in the “saffron era,” dominating civic, state and national elections and reshaping the political landscape. “The BJP was politically insignificant when Bal Thackeray’s aggressive Hindutva was at its peak,” notes Radheshyam Jadhav, author of Trail of the Tiger, Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray. “There was no leader in the country as sharp-tongued and rabid. The Sena’s association helped the BJP to win political support. The party played the role of big brother to the BJP.”

Three decades later, the tables appear to have turned on the original harbingers of communal politics in Maharashtra. After the recent assembly polls, the BJP has successfully knocked out Thackeray’s Sena in the state and become the big brother of Hindutva politics.

The BJP secured the highest vote share of 26.77 per cent, winning 132 of the 149 contested seats. Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena split into two factions—one led by Eknath Shinde (the BJP’s ally) and the other by Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (UBT)—with a sharp decline in vote share. Sena UBT won 20 out of 90 contested seats. The BJP-led Mahayuti alliance, which includes Shinde’s faction and Ajit Pawar’s NCP, reversed its declining fortunes from the Lok Sabha polls and achieved a landslide in the assembly elections, making the BJP the state’s single-largest party despite a 26 per cent drop in its vote share. Political expert Sudhir Suryawanshi attributes the BJP’s Lok Sabha defeat to anger over farm distress, prices, Maratha reservation and constitutional concerns. “The BJP’s win in the assembly elections is not an endorsement of Modi, but a nod to the state leadership under CM Shinde, whose contribution with schemes like the Ladki Bahin was crucial in seizing maximum votes,” he says.

A united OBC vote block, a divided Maratha community and consolidation of Hindu and women’s votes, welfare schemes and campaigning in the name of Hindutva resulted in a massive shift in the BJP’s favour. “BJP by default got the benefit of the votes in CM Shinde’s name. People have voted for Shinde as he was the face of the Mahayuti alliance and led its campaign in the state. Had Shinde contested 150 seats, he would have got the same number of seats,” asserts Suryawanshi.  

The BJP’s third consecutive victory in Maharashtra has solidified its dominance, with Shinde Sena sidelining the Thackeray-led group. This marks the BJP’s triumph over its long-time ideological ally. Neelanjan Sircar, Senior Fellow at the Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research, notes that the BJP often absorbs its regional allies once it gets significant popularity and vote share. “The BJP needs regional parties to gain a foothold in their state and form the government. After coming to power, it doesn’t need the support of long-term allies. They use resources to manage short-term deals and cut down their partners by engineering factions and ending their dominance to prevent further vote splitting,” says Sircar.

In 2024, the BJP broke its long-standing alliance with Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik, after ending his BJD’s dominance in the eastern state. Patnaik’s party helped Vajpayee’s NDA rise to power in 1998 but parted ways in 2009. Now, the BJP’s rise in Odisha culminated in a victory, securing 79 seats and installing its first CM. Similarly, the BJP’s long-standing alliance with Punjab’s Akali Dal dissolved in 2020. Once ideologically aligned against the Congress, the two parties contested the 2024 elections as rivals. All regional alliances in BJP’s NDA appear to be fashioned by temporary necessities, formed to capture state and central power in the long run.

Sircar says the goal for the BJP is to win power and for this, the priority is not “ideological similarity but always short-term strategic considerations”. The alliance with H.D. Kumaraswamy’s Janata Dal-Secular in Karnataka or Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) in Bihar are prime examples of tie-ups with political adversaries. 

No political party today thinks about long-term ideological investments. “Given the resources, money and numbers the BJP has, it can provide a short-term bump-up in power, visibility and status, to regional actors looking to advance their political career,” says Sircar. Several leaders, including the Congress’ Jyotiraditya Scindia in Rajasthan, Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) C.M. Ramesh in Andhra Pradesh and Suvendu Adhikari from the TMC in West Bengal, shifted allegiances to the BJP. In Maharashtra, senior Congress and NCP leaders too joined the BJP after facing corruption probes. This strategy of forging regional partnerships and attracting defectors has expanded the BJP’s reach. As of December 2024, the BJP and its allies govern 19 of India’s 28 states, including key regions like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Gujarat, solidifying the party’s dominance in Indian politics. “Part of the BJP’s success model is (that) there is no genuine ideological bond between partners to form a coalition government,” Sircar adds. 

Maharashtra’s BJP-Sena alliance was rooted in shared Hindutva ideology, though Sena’s dominance in the Hindutva vote bank also posed an internal challenge to the BJP. Jadhav’s Trail of The Tiger... highlights Bal Thackeray’s claim that his family pioneered political Hindutva, making him an ideological adversary to Narendra Modi. Bal’s father, Prabodhankar Thackeray, was an anti-caste reformist whose progressive Hindutva aimed to unite Hindus, alleviate poverty and preserve Maharashtrian culture.

Uddhav Thackeray’s moderate Hindutva, emphasising its role in supporting livelihoods rather than inciting violence, draws from Prabodhankar’s vision. Bal Thackeray’s fiery speeches on Hindu pride and the Babri demolition earned him national fame as Hindu Hridaysamrat, yet the Sena never sought to expand beyond Maharashtra. Modi’s rise post-2002 Gujarat riots shifted the BJP’s Hindutva dynamics to another scale, marginalising the Sena’s influence.

“After Bal Thackeray, Modi was touted as the second brave Hindu leader who made the Muslims tremble. His popularity and political leadership were rising when Bal Thackeray was ailing because of old age,” says Jadhav.

Bal Thackeray’s death in 2012 cleared a major hurdle for the BJP to politically infiltrate Maharashtra. It piggybacked on the Sena’s success and hijacked its political agenda to widen its reach in the far corners of the state. By 2014, the BJP decided to contest the state elections without allying with the Sena and won 122 seats, numerically emerging as the senior Hindutva force. “It was clear for the BJP that it no longer needed the Sena’s help and began to corner Uddhav,” Jadhav adds. From the traditional slogan Jai Bhavani, Jai Shivaji to worshipping Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the BJP began to hijack Sena’s political symbolism and display it in its rallies. It also began to benefit from the Sena’s support base of OBC and non-Maratha communities, which has added to its increased vote share.

Both Suryawanshi and Jadhav underline that the BJP’s crowning moment in Maharashtra does not mark the end of Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena. “Like the Congress’ identity is imprinted with the Gandhi family, so is the Sena’s with Thackeray. They will continue to be politically relevant even if their current state is in disarray,” says Jadhav. “It is the Shinde Sena faction, whose future is in the hands of the BJP, which can end its relevance when Shinde’s utility value fades away.”

Shinde Sena is the third-largest alliance partner of the NDA with seven MPs. The BJP needs Shinde Sena’s support to stay in power at the centre until 2029, when perhaps it would look to pen down a new chapter of alliances and regional partnership.

(This appeared in the print as 'BJP Trump's Thackeray's Sena')