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Friday, Jul 08, 2005

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Tiger Thackeray and his wounds

Just days before Balasaheb Thackeray expelled Narayan Rane from the party, he described the man as a "diehard Shiv Sainik." He was responding to media conjecture that the former Chief Minister and incumbent Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly had fallen out with the Sena leadership. By Sunday, Mr. Rane had metamorphosed from loyalist to "traitor," and it was open war between the Shiv Sena supremo and his once faithful lieutenant. The legislature wing of the Sena has since passed a resolution electing Ramdas Kadam as its leader. There is a hackneyed feel to the whole affair; from Chhagan Bhujbal in the 1990s to Sanjay Nirupam recently, any mutiny in the Sena has always ended with the rebels being shown the door by the despotic party chief. Nonetheless, events leading up to Sunday's showdown suggest that this could be the Sena's worst crisis yet. It was not a whimsical diktat from Matoshree that sealed Mr. Rane's fate. The former Chief Minister virtually forced Mr. Thackeray's hand. On Saturday, Mr. Rane faxed a two-page letter to the party chief announcing his intention to resign from the party's decision-making council. The letter accused Uddhav Thackeray, the Sena supremo's son and the party's working president, of riding roughshod over the Sena cadre. Some months ago, Mr. Rane had stunned Mr. Thackeray by suggesting that coveted posts were being traded in the party. No prizes for guessing who the barb was aimed at.

In the past, the senior Thackeray would have summarily sacked anyone who dared to point a finger at him or at his son. The Sena strongman quietly stomached the insult; more unbelievably he came to the defence of Mr. Rane when the press sought to project a division in the ranks. Clearly, along the way the equations had changed. That Mr. Rane felt emboldened to drag the junior Thackeray into the fight suggests the Sena chief is no longer the awe-inspiring figure he once was. There is also a hint of palace intrigue in all this with speculation linking Mr. Rane's revolt to Raj Thackeray, the Sena chief's nephew and his one time heir-apparent who subsequently took a backseat to his cousin. So is the Sena headed for a split? Not immediately given the difficulties posed by the amended anti-defection law which forbids splits but allows two-thirds of a party to merge with another party. Mr. Rane is a Maratha with a wide following and he would benefit whichever party he joins — the Congress or the Nationalist Congress Party. For the NCP, the addition of the Rane faction would also mean a second chance to wrest the Chief Ministership from the Congress. Yet none of this looks like happening in a hurry. In its 39-year history, the Sena has suffered many blows, including a near-vertical split in its ranks when Mr. Bhujbal walked out and merged with the Congress. Tiger Thackeray always got the better of those who challenged him. This time it could be a different story.

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