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How Eknath Shinde’s star rose in Maharashtra politics
Summary
Rajdeep Sardesai's new book, ‘2024: The Election that Surprised India’ takes a look at the two main factors behind the success of the man from Thane who once drove an autorickshaw
The template for political immunity from prosecution was set a year earlier, in June 2022, when the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) government in Maharashtra was toppled after a dramatic coup staged by Eknath Shinde, a close aide of the Shiv Sena chieftain. An energetic political go-getter, seen sporting a flaming red tilak on his forehead and a well-trimmed beard, the short-statured Shinde, a senior minister in the MVA government, was eyeing the chief minister’s chair while Uddhav Thackeray was convalescing in hospital after spinal surgery in December 2021.
“I am doing all the hard work for the party and the government, but the credit is going entirely to Uddhav ji and now to his son Aaditya. Why should I work under a kid like Aaditya?’ a frustrated Shinde complained to a party colleague. Matters came to a head when the party’s Thane strongman was reportedly kept waiting in an anteroom for more than an hour at Varsha, the chief minister’s official residence, only to be told that Uddhav ji was unwell but he could meet Aaditya or Thackeray’s wife, Rashmi, instead. ‘That was the day I decided enough is enough, I will not compromise my self-respect any further,’ claimed Shinde.
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‘What absolute rubbish!’ countered Sanjay Raut, MP and Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson. ‘Uddhav ji gave Shinde ji a free hand in running his ministry and the party in Thane; he trusted him completely. There was no interference.’ According to Raut, Shinde’s rebellion was triggered by a discreet ED inquiry into two of his associates, including a prominent builder. ‘He was worried that the inquiry would soon reach his doorstep, and he feared he would be sent to jail,’ asserted Raut. If the Uddhav camp is to be believed, a month before he quit the party, a tearful Shinde had pleaded with the Sena leadership to ally with the BJP, else he would be arrested. ‘I am a grandfather now; I don’t want to be jailed,’ he had cried.
Sensing an ambitious Shinde’s restiveness was Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who had a score to settle, having been checkmated by the Uddhav Thackeray–Sharad Pawar duo in 2019. Shah claimed that he had rung up Shinde in November 2019 itself, minutes after the Thackeray-led government was sworn in. ‘I told him that whenever he felt suffocated by the Thackerays, he should call me,’ he revealed. The only other politician kept in the loop was Fadnavis, still seething at the manner in which the Sena had ditched him in 2019. When the Shah–Shinde–Fadnavis troika met in Delhi, Shah warmed up to the feisty Sena leader and assured him full support if he could break the party and form a government. ‘It will not be easy, but I will try,’ promised Shinde, who was keenly aware of the clout of the Thackerays within the Sena rank and file. […]
Shinde, in his white long-sleeved shirt and matching trousers, was a dominant figure in Thane, a sprawling district near Mumbai. Where he once plied an autorickshaw on crowded streets, he now moved around in a fleet of cars and owned a large farmhouse with a private helipad, proof of how the Sena had transitioned from a ‘Marathi manoos’ regionally chauvinist force into a wealth-creating political enterprise. But could the loyal Thane satrap, however resourceful, take on an enduring family legacy and actually split a party in power? A man of few words, Shinde had two weapons in his armoury as he set about his mission to take down his leader. The first was the unstinted backing of the Union home minister. The second was the looming presence of the ED.
Like with the NCP, there were a number of Shiv Sena leaders too on the ED’s radar. […]
Not surprisingly, when Shinde finally made his big move and broke away from the Shiv Sena in June 2022, the numbers were overwhelmingly in his favour. As many as forty of the Shiv Sena’s fifty-six MLAs and twelve of the party’s nineteen MPs chose to join hands with him. The MLAs were first driven to a Surat resort, then flown to a hotel in Guwahati, before finally arriving in Mumbai via Goa ten days later. As they travelled from one BJP-ruled state to another, the MLAs were provided state ‘protection’: local police officers accompanied them at all times. While Shinde was the face of the rebellion, the operation was personally supervised by Home Minister Shah from Delhi. ‘Amit Shah ji ne humko bahut madad di (Amit Shah helped us a lot),’ a Shinde-supporting MLA admitted. During their stay in a Guwahati hotel, the MLAs were looked after by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. ‘He assured us that we were in safe hands,’ revealed one of the defectors.
The destabilization and eventual downfall of the Opposition-led Maharashtra government in the summer of 2022 was a glaring instance of the ED being ‘weaponized’. The Modi government stood accused of abusing the ED’s coercive powers and drawing a supposedly independent agency meant to act against criminality into a battle for supremacy between two warring factions of a rival political party. ‘Why do you keep saying “ED, ED"? Many of us who left had no ED cases. We broke away because we wanted to revive the original Hindutva alliance,’ said Deepak Kesarkar, a senior Shiv Sena minister. ‘All those charged continue to be probed; no one is being let off,’ maintained Amit Shah. And yet, all the evidence suggests that the cases built up by the ED against those who switched sides were either slowed down or rendered redundant. No one who joined the Eknath Shinde camp has been convicted or jailed for any of the alleged crimes they were once being investigated for.
In contrast, the voluble Uddhav loyalist Sanjay Raut, who had become a one-man army defending the Thackerays, was arrested by the ED in August 2022, weeks after the new Shinde-led government was sworn in. Raut was accused of money laundering in a slum redevelopment case in Mumbai and imprisoned for three months. When he was granted bail, the Bombay High Court, in a stinging order, described his arrest as ‘ab initio illegal’. […]
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A Rajya Sabha MP, Raut claimed that at least three BJP leaders in Delhi had contacted him before his arrest and offered to bail him out provided he ditch the Thackerays and help topple the MVA government. Accusing the ED of being part of a ‘criminal syndicate of the BJP,’ Raut wrote to then Vice President Venkaiah Naidu in February 2022, seeking ‘protection from the abuse of power to perpetuate intimidation and harassment of MPs’. He even warned at a press conference just days ahead of his arrest that he had obtained video evidence to expose ED officials who were extorting money by blackmailing local businessmen. The alleged video was never released, but Raut was spoiling for a fight with the ED. ‘Do you know that on the day the ED officials raided my house and eventually arrested me, they kept telling me, “Sir, uparwalon se boliye, woh sambhal lenge (Why don’t you speak to those on top; they will sort this out),"’ he disclosed.
Raut’s version is contested by ED officials who claim that they act on evidence and not political inclinations. But the whispers in the power corridors repeatedly echo two words to describe the ED’s actions against political figures: ‘washing machine’. ‘Sarkar mein jao, sab paap dhul jaate hain (Join the government, all your sins are washed). ED is like Lalita ji in the famous Surf ad,’ chuckled Raut. It is an efficient washing machine indeed: go in stained and dirty if in the Opposition, come out on the other side as a member of the BJP, squeaky clean.
Excerpted with permission from HarperCollins India from 2024: The Election that Surprised India by Rajdeep Sardesai.
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