Deprived of new allies after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde split the Shiv Sena following an inter-party rebellion, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction on Friday announced an alliance with the pro-Maratha Sambhaji Brigade.
The decision is being seen as a way for Mr. Thackeray to make up for his losses, as Mr. Shinde’s rebellion has badly exhausted his faction of several Maratha leaders.
Speaking in Mumbai, Mr Thackeray, Shiv Sena president and former chief minister, insisted that the alliance with the brigade was not done keeping electoral gains in mind, but to preserve regional identity and save democracy.
Hitting out at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), his once ally, Mr Thackeray said: “Today, the Constitution and the essence of democracy are in danger. some people are [alluding to the BJP] Those who consider the regional parties to be abolished as ‘democracy’. Therefore, to uphold the democratic ideals and uphold the regional identity, we have formed this alliance with the Brigade. Had this alliance been for electoral gains only, then the Sambhaji Brigade would not have come and joined us now.
Responding to the different ideologies of the Brigade and the Army, Mr Thackeray said that even today the BJP has not followed the ideology of its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
“Today’s BJP ignores the stand of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat,” Mr Thackeray alleged.
Sambhaji Brigade president Manoj Akhare said the decision to forge an alliance with Mr Thackeray’s army was taken “keeping in mind the welfare of Maharashtra and seeing that democracy is in danger in the country today.”
“For the past 30 years, Sambhaji Brigade has been working on diverse social issues and striving to ensure justice for all castes and communities. In November 2016, we registered as a political party and decided to contest at all levels from local bodies to state assembly elections. Today, for the betterment of Maharashtra, we have come together with Shiv Sena to create a new political equation in the state,” Mr. Akhre said, lauding Mr. Thackeray as a pro-people CM.
Despite taking opposing stances in the past, Mr Akhre said both the Sambhaji Brigade and the Shiv Sena (Thackeray faction) were “progressive parties”.
Maratha identity
Taking a leading role during the Maratha reservation movement in 2015 and 2016, a branch of the Maratha Seva Sangh – known for its militant anti-Brahmin stance – has mainly worked on issues related to Maratha and other backward communities.
The Sambhaji Brigade infamously made headlines in January 2004 after ransacking the Pune-based Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), which houses one of South Asia’s largest and most priceless manuscripts, while protesting Mr. Line’s book on Shivaji. doing. Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India (2003).
In 2017, the brigade vandalized a statue of iconic Marathi litterateur Ram Ganesh Gadkari at Sambhaji Park in Pune on the grounds that the author had played a role in his unfinished play. royal retirement, had allegedly “discredited” the Maratha king Sambhaji (Chhatrapati Shivaji’s son) by portraying him as a drunkard and a feminist.
However, the brigade’s longest feud has been with the late right-wing historian and Shivaji expert Babasaheb Purandare.
Brigade has repeatedly claimed that historians deliberately “wrong” the history of the Maratha warrior king of the 17th century with “malicious intent”.
Incidentally, Mr. Purandare was a prominent ideologue of the Shiv Sena in the party’s early years.
Responding cautiously to Mr. Akhare’s portrayal of the Shiv Sena as “progressive”, Mr. Thackeray said in a lighter vein: “These are heavy words. Ours. [Sena’s] There is a simpler and more direct approach. You [Brigade] Join Shiv Sena because of our vision and I welcome these fierce fighters [Brigade members],
The brigade has been vehemently opposed to the BJP and its ‘Hindutva’. Mr Thackeray’s Shiv Sena has been a long-time ally of the BJP before breaking alliance with the ideologically opposed NCP and Congress to form the MVA in late 2019.
Asked about the inclusion of Sambhaji Brigade in the MVA, Mr Thackeray said that BJP veteran and late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) also had around thirty regional parties.