Written by Quaid Najmi
A day after the ruling Shiv Sena's ad blitzkrieg resulted in a political carpet-bombing, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday, June 14, went into a 'damage-control' mode. The party issued a fresh, 'politically correct' advertisement, distributing due credit to all, including the BJP's Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who is seen grinning and waving in the photo, with Shinde shown on the left.
In contrast to sharing space only with Prime Minister Narendra Modi the previous day, the ads on Wednesday have become roomier, accommodating even Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the late Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray, and Thane strongman and Shinde's 'guru' the late Anand Dighe. Besides the Shiv Sena's 'Bow-and-Arrow' symbol, even the BJP's 'Lotus' blooms at the top with the twin slogans: 'Peoples' choice only for Shiv Sena-BJP alliance', 'Our heads at the feet of the people, Long Live Maharashtra.'
Surprisingly, the bottom of the ad has squeezed in all the Shiv Sena cabinet ministers – though the BJP ministerial team is missing – with a message expressing "deepest gratitude to the people of Maharashtra." Other findings of the survey – conducted by ZeeTV – are mentioned, saying Modi remains the choice of 84% of the people, 62% saying that the 'double-engine government' has given a fillip to the state's development, 46.4% of the respondents rooted for the ruling alliance, 34.6% only for the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi, and 19% for the others.
The ads that appeared on Tuesday in which Shinde had unceremoniously dumped Fadnavis, the late Thackeray, Shah, Dighe or even his team-mates, had sparked off a huge political row, with the MVA leaders jeering at the ruling alliance. In the controversial ads, Shinde appeared to grab full credit as being the state's "most popular" leader, and catapulting himself above Fadnavis and below the Prime Minister with the line: "Modi in Rashtra; Shinde in Maharashtra' ("Modi in India, Shinde in Maharashtra).
The BJP was understandably rattled and outraged, with Fadnavis reporting "sick" with an earache to skip events with the Chief Minister on Tuesday. The Shiv Sena proclaimed that Shinde was the popular choice for the Chief Minister post with 26.1% of the voters' nod, pipping Fadnavis by a margin of 2.9% by securing 23.2%.
There were more shocks for the BJP, with the contention that Modi and Shinde getting huge affection from the people in the survey, virtually making them a "dream team."
"The partnership of Modi-Shinde – that has resulted in many public welfare projects – has secured the top position in a recent survey," said the ad, rattling BJP circles.
It added that 49.3% of the people had selected the partnership of Shinde-Fadnavis, patting itself on the back. As many as 30.2% of the voters rooted for BJP and 16.2% preferred the Shiv Sena, or a total of 46.4%, in the survey, showing a large photo of Modi-Shinde, but all others were conspicuously missing from Tuesday's ads.
In the 2014 and 2019 Assembly elections, the BJP had fought the polls on the plank of "Narendra (Modi) in India, Devendra (Fadnavis) in Maharashtra." However, now Shinde virtually eased out Fadnavis from that slot as per the survey results and perched himself there with the brand new slogan of "Modi in rashtra, Shinde in Maharashtra."
The full-paper ad figures in many leading Marathi papers and comes days after a row was kicked up over the Chief Minister's son and Thane MP, Shrikant Shinde's threat to quit, and the bickering over the much-delayed cabinet expansion plans. These ads come barely a fortnight ahead of the first anniversary of the swearing-in of the Shinde-Fadnavis regime on June 30, after the Shiv Sena (UBT)-Congress-Nationalist Congress Party MVA government led by former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was toppled.