Mumbai: As the no-holds-barred campaign for elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India’s richest civic body, drew to a close on Sunday, political rhetoric and name-calling indulged in by the ruling BJP and Shiv Sena appears to have hardened into the beginnings of an enemity.
The election has also turned into what is being seen as a bipolar contest between the Sena and BJP, to the dismay of other main parties including the Congress, MNS and NCP. Mud-slinging, otherwise considered par for the course in election campaigns, has turned into a personal battle between the two parties, with terms such as ‘mafia’, ‘blackmailer’ and ‘monster of corruption’ being used with abandon.
As Dr. Surendra Jondhale, a political observer and Professor of Political Science at Mumbai University says, the battle was reduced towards the end to one between two personalities: Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP. In the middle of all this, he said, civic issues which should have been central to all debates have been sidelined.
The Sena kicked off its campaign by refusing an electoral alliance with long-time partner BJP, saying 25 years of alliance has stunted its growth. The BJP chose to project bringing transparency in the civic body and freeing it from 20 years of corruption as its planks. The party sought to to distance itself from everything that is wrong with the BMC, especially corruption, by blaming the Sena for it as it was the ‘big brother’ in the civic body.
The Kalyan-Dombivli formula
In what is now known as the Kalyan Dombivli formula — the Sena and BJP contested against each other in the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation polls and joined hands after the results — the important part is to make the voter believe that the alliance is broken to the point of no return.
Here’s how it broadly played out: the BJP accused Uddhav Thackeray of money laundering and of cutting a secret deal with the Congress. In retaliation, Sena ministers in State government threatened to resign. With Sena leadership busy with fire-fighting, Mr. Fadnavis was free to spell out his plans for the city’s development in a bid to woo the middle class voter.
The Opposition’s failure in grabbing headlines is also attributed to a lack of charismatic leadership. The Congress sought to play down the Sena-BJP drama by calling it a fake fight, but was itself mired in infighting over distribution of tickets. The NCP, which does not have a strong base in Mumbai, chose to concentrate on certain pockets. To add to the Congress’s woes, the growing popularity of the Owaisi-led AIMIM is likely to cut into its and the Samajwadi Party’s share of Muslim votes.
MNS chief Raj Thackeray, who had the Herculean task of salvaging his sinking ship, entered late into the fray due to his son’s ill-health. According to Dr. Jondhale, the party could not capitalise on its sons-of-the-soil agenda with the BJP dictating terms during campaigning.
“Even the city’s social morphology has undergone tremendous change. Look at the number of north and south Indian leaders brought in by the Congress and BJP; it clearly shows that voters other than Marathis are in considerable numbers,” he added.
