India - Maharashtra state election campaign 2014: Man of Maharashtra Match is Amit Shah, Not Modi (Rana Ayyub)

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Man of Maharashtra Match is Amit Shah, Not Modi

by Rana Ayyub

(Rana Ayyub is an award-winning investigative journalist and political writer. She is working on a book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi which will be published in 2015.)

About a month ago, a senior Shiv Sena leader in a private conversation said, "We will show them their aukaat should they pursue with their arrogance". The leader, known for his proximity to Uddhav Thackeray, may have to feast on his words soon for none across the political spectrum at this moment can snatch a huge moment of glory from either the BJP or its President and Modi confidante, Amit Shah.

It was 50-year-old Shah who the Sena lashed out at in its editorials; it was Shah who was denigrated as a back-stabbing Afzal Khan (the outsider who betrayed Shivaji, a Maratha icon).

The Sena, which claims to be the sole protector of Marathi interest, had been served a befitting rival. He had gumption. For the first time, perhaps, the Sena was challenged in its own territory when Shah's followers had a life-size poster of him boarded on the Kala Nagar flyover right opposite Matoshree, the residence of the Thackerays, a terrain considered sacrosanct in Maharashtra politics. A space only meant to be occupied by images of the Sena patriarch and his family members.

Exit polls predict the BJP will on Sunday emerge as the single largest party in the state; some polls give the party an absolute majority.

Credit this to Shah who made deft moves to bring the Sena to its knees by refusing to play second fiddle. When most BJP members mocked at the proposal to snap ties with the Sena for fear of the Maratha wrath, it was the shrewd social-political calculations by the former Home Minister of Gujarat which finally led to the two allies parting ways on bitter terms.

Shah had understood the mood on the ground: Uddhav Thackeray and the Shiv Sena hit gold in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha elections courtesy the alliance with the BJP. After Bal Thackeray's death, neither Uddhav nor Raj had managed to evolve their brand of politics. The time was right for the BJP to go its own way.

Shah with great skill emulated the politics of social engineering which saw regional parties in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh consolidate votes in their favor; he used the regional card once displayed by veteran Congress and BJP leaders from Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh and Pramod Mahajan.

Till his death two years ago, despite being a union minister and Chief Minister for two terms, Vilasrao Deshmukh continued to be seen as the leader from Marathwada with a towering presence. Pramod Mahajan in the early 90s decided to rope in his brother-in-law - the late Gopinath Munde, an OBC - as the face of the party in Maharashtra, knowing well that the Brahmin vote amongst the Marathas was a miniscule number.

The BJP, which suffered a huge loss with Mahajan's untimely demise and later with the passing of Gopinath Munde, adapted this brand of politics under Amit Shah's leadership. The Shah-led campaign committee which had been actively involved in the Lok Sabha elections too, installed Sangh favourite from Nagpur, Devendra Fadnavis, as state unit President; it also made him in charge of the crucial eastern region of Vidarbha, infamous for farmer suicides. This is a region where most leaders have failed the credibility and performance test.

Fadnavis, with a clean image and proximity to the Sangh leadership, was a fitting candidate for top leader not just for Vidarbha but also for the entire state. With Munde's death and Gadkari's elevation to the Delhi cabinet, the second rung of the Maharashtra BJP got entangled in a bitter fight. Leaders Eknath Khadse, Vinod Tawde and Pankaja Munde were fighting for the top job, taking public pot shots at each other at local events, weakening the Maharashtra BJP further

It was at this juncture about three months ago that Shah in a closed-door meeting with state leaders warned the warring factions to either unite or perish. He made it clear that Fadnavis would be the top boss and all decisions were to be taken by him. All four were asked to strengthen the party in their respective regions.

In another shrewd move, Shah made it a point to ensure that the smaller alliance partners of the Mahayuti remained loyal to the BJP rather than the Sena. Shah accomplished this when the Sena and BJP were warring over seat-sharing by asking the Sena to part with seats from its already-shrinking slice of the pie for these junior partners. This was suggested knowing well that the Sena would feel humiliated with bargaining further; after all, by this time, its demand for the post of Chief Minister had already been rejected.

The alliance snapped with Shah-led BJP taking the moral high ground, declaring that it had acted in the interest of smaller parties and chosen the interest of the Mahayuti over power. This came in handy in Western Maharashtra, where these smaller parties were to play a crucial role. And as the exit poll projections prove, they have indeed made an impact.

BJP party members were asked to look for disenchanted sitting MLAs and local leaders who enjoyed ground support and could be poached with the lure of power. When Modi was busy with his foreign trips, Shah made overnight trips to Mumbai for closed-door meetings with these rebels. With poaching being his forte, it was mostly a success.

At a press conference in Mumbai in August , Devendra Fadnavis had remarked that Amit Shah would replicate his success formula from Uttar Pradesh in Maharashtra too. "It won't be the 'UP formula', but a distinct 'Maharashtra formula', and we have begun work on the same," Fadnavis had remarked

And he was not wrong. The man who had handled 18 ministeries in the Modi dispensation in Gujarat, who managed to shadow-run his government for three successive terms, had played his cards with surgical precision not just in Uttar Pradesh but now as exit polls prove, in Maharashtra too. The minister who once shamed his portfolio with being the first serving Home Minister to be charged with murder, kidnapping and extortion ended up being the trump card for the BJP.

He is the man the Shiv Sena would love to hate today, but love him or hate him, 2014 belongs to Amit Shah. He may not be the best news for inclusive politics, but for now, the BJP has much to thank him for.


Story First Published: October 16, 2014 11:48 IST