A Battle of Legacies

ON A BUSY STRETCH of road that metres away spills into one of the city’s most picturesque spots, the Worli Sea Face, Milind Deora stands with Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde atop a small stage. Deora, a former Congress leader who switched to the Shinde faction of Shiv Sena earlier this year, is the party’s candidate for Worli, and the two are now here to inaugurate Deora’s election office. The event has started late and at a time most offices close for the day. Around them now, in Worli and nearby Parel, people are emerging from the compounds of what were once the city’s textile mills but are swanky corporate offices today, catching buses and taxis to get to their homes, and the roads now thrum with activity.

The stage itself is so cramped that as more and more individuals try to get on it with garlands and festoons, it becomes impossible to stand atop it for long. Later, Deora stands in a corner, surrounded by report­ers. “The speed of our government is a no-speed-limit pace,” he says, referring to the ruling Mahayuti alliance in the state. “But people in the Opposition, their work is to put a speed-breaker. We need to finish this speed-breaker politics forever, from Mumbai and Maharashtra.”

Located in central Mumbai, the Worli constituency is spread across a very diverse set of neighbourhoods. There is a fishing village on the Worli coast, old buildings like the BDD (Bombay Development Depart­ment) chawls that house the families of the city’s mill workers of the past, and over the last decade, its streets have been transformed with the building of many upmarket residential towers and corporate of­fices. The many mills that once operated in central Mumbai, and the primarily Marathi population that worked in these mills, played a key role in the growth of the original Shiv Sena. And this has ensured that Worli has been a Shiv Sena fortress. Except for one term in 2009, when Sachin Ahir, then a leader of the un­divided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), won the constituency, Shiv Sena has held the Worli seat since 1990. When the Thackeray family decided to break away with tradi­tion to field a member of the family for the first time in 2019, it unsur­prisingly chose Worli as the place to make Aaditya Thackeray’s political debut. And the constituency repaid that faith by giving him a 72.7 per cent vote share (89,267 votes). The next closest candidate, Suresh Mane of the undivided NCP, got just 17.8 per cent (29,000 votes).

But the election this time takes place in a transformed political landscape, one where two major parties have split into factions. And Shinde faction’s choice of Milind Deora as its candidate, a well-known figure in Mumbai’s political circles who like his father Murli Deora is seen to have strong connections with the city’s top corporate fami­lies, has turned the contest in Worli into one of the most high-profile political fights in Maharashtra’s Assembly elections.

What made the party choose Deora, the party’s leaders say, was simply because they thought he was best suited to take on Aaditya. “Milind Deora has been an MP twice. He hails from South Mumbai, and has a cosmopolitan image. And along with the government’s performance, the party thinks he can win the seat,” says Krishna Hegde, a former MLA and currently a spokesperson of the Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena. What has added more in­trigue is the candidature of a Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) candidate, Sandeep Deshpande. MNS has been known to eat into the Marathi votes of the original Sena. Will it hurt Aaditya more, or both Deora and Aaditya equally, or even do the unthinkable, is anybody’s guess. Both Shinde’s faction, ever since it split from the original party, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been pay­ing special attention to Worli, and other locations in central Mum­bai, whether it was poaching local leaders or organising cultural events and festivals. The choice of a strong candidate like Deora, many believe, is so that the party can give a strong fight, if not defeat Aaditya altogether, and with that, try to bring the political legacy of Uddhav Thackeray and his son to an end. “You have to remember that Shinde wants to erase the political lineage of the Thackerays,” says Surendra Jondhale, a professor of political science at the Uni­versity of Mumbai, referring to Shinde’s aim of emerging as the one true heir of Bal Thackeray and the original Shiv Sena. “When Bal Thackeray died, there were many questions about whether Uddhav could carry that legacy forward, which he managed to answer by becoming chief minister. With the topic of Uddhav’s health often in conversation, if Aaditya loses the seat, suddenly the future of the Thackeray clan and the party will begin to look bleak.”

“Milind Deora is not going to pose any challenge,” says Harshal Pradhan, a member of the Uddhav’s faction of Shiv Sena. “He has been losing elections [he won Mumbai South twice as an MP candidate in 2004 and 2009, before losing in 2014 and 2019], and he is not from Worli. Aaditya is not from Worli either, but he is well-loved here, and those working for him here are working hard to ensure he wins the seat this time too.” He is referring to the efforts by popular local leaders like Ahir and Sunil Shinde.

Aaditya’s candidacy back in 2019 was carefully managed to en­sure he won the seat with a wide margin. Ahir, the only non-Sena candidate to win Worli since 1990, was convinced to quit NCP, whose Mumbai unit he headed, and join Sena months before the election. The sitting Sena MLA Sunil Shinde was also asked to va­cate the seat. Both were made members of the legislative council.

When the Thackeray family decided to break with tradition to field a member of the family in an election for the first time in 2019, it unsurprisingly chose Worli as the place to make Aaditya’s political debut. And the constituency repaid that faith by giving him a 72.7 per cent vote share

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What has given members of the Deora camp considerable enthusiasm is the analysis of the victory margins in the Mumbai South constituency of the Lok Sabha election earlier this year. While Arvind Sawant of Uddhav’s faction did win the seat, his victory margin in the area that comprises the Worli constituency was a narrow 6,715 votes. Using the result of one election, where the con­text and issues are different, to gauge the likely outcome of another is questionable, but many in the Deora camp feel that the slender margin reflects the voters’ disinterest in Aaditya. “Actually, Deora played a big role in ensuring that the difference between the two candidates in Worli was so narrow. He comes from an illustrious family and is a known name in South Mumbai,” says a leader from the Shinde faction.

Not too far from the new election office of Deora, although it might appear like a world removed, are the BDD chawls that spread across the neighbourhoods of Worli, Naigaon and Parel. Built by the colonial government after the plague outbreak in 1898, the 195 buildings that make it up houses the families of the working classes of the city’s old mills and docks, many of them Marathis, in cramped one-room homes. The original undivided Shiv Sena drew a lot of its political power from places like the BDD chawls in central Mumbai.

Kiran Mane is in his house in one of the BDD chawls, discussing the upcoming election in his constituency. “Aaditya Thackeray is seen like a rajkumar [prince] here [in the BDD chawls],” he says. “He is a Thackeray. He won the last time, and his party always wins from here. Most of us here know Milind Deora too, from his earlier stints as an MP from Mum­bai South, and he has a lot of goodwill here. But whether he can challenge Aaditya, who can tell. ” Mane is a well-known figure in the locality. Born here, with a grandfather and father who were mill workers, he serves as the general secretary of a group (Akhil BDD Chawl Bhadekaru Haqq Sanrakshan Samiti) that has been campaigning for redevelopment of the chawls. These buildings have languished in a decrepit condition, and the demands for its redevelopment have been going on for over two decades. Although there are still many complications ahead, after decades now, the redevelopment of this locality is finally coming into shape. The chawls are being redeveloped in phases, with the first two build­ings, 40 storeys high, expected to be completed by January next year. Another six buildings, Mane says, should be ready by around June.

With elections approaching, both sets of political parties have been quick to seek credit, with those in the ruling party claiming it was the Devendra Fadnavis-led government that pushed for its redevelopment when he was the chief minister earlier and Shinde who ensured it went ahead when he assumed power, and those in the Opposition camp pointing it was Thackeray who revived the project when he became chief minister after Fadnavis.

Mane is all chuckles as he recounts these contests over who is responsible for the project. According to him, there are still many challenges that need to be surmounted, and whatever redevelop­ment appears to be taking place, should have in fact occurred de­cades ago. And then he lowers his voice as he considers who among the candidates has the edge in the election. “All I can say is it won’t be easy for Aaditya,” he says.

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Lhendup G Bhutia

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