Kalyan: Despite Mahayuti bitterness, will Eknath Shinde’s son Shrikant Shinde succeed in securing a hattrick?
Despite facing a weak challenge from Rane, the infighting in Mahayuti and disgruntled leaders and party workers pose a headache for Shinde
Kalyan Lok Sabha constituency will see a heated contest between two Shiv Sena factions, with sitting MP Shrikant Shinde, the son of chief minister Eknath Shinde, contesting against Vaishali Darekar-Rane, a comparatively low-profile candidate representing Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balsaheb Thackeray). Shinde had secured successive victories in the last two general elections from the Kalyan seat, attributed to support from the pro-Hindutva voter base in the constituency.
But the Shinde camp has reasons for worry due to disputes with allies in the Mahayuti coalition, the bitterness in relations between Shrikant Shinde and the BJP's local leaders and party workers, past differences with the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena MLA Pramod Patil and the minority-dominated Kalwa-Mumbra belt. Shinde camp will have to overcome these challenges to secure a hat trick.
When the Thackeray-led Sena faction declared the candidature of Vaishali Darekar-Rane for the Kalyan Lok Sabha seat, analysts considered the victory to be a cakewalk for Shinde, considering Rane’s lack of a network of local supporters and resources. After the split in Shiv Sena, the majority of the local corporators and leaders have joined CM Shinde's camp. Hence, the contest is shaping up to be a fight between a well-established sitting MP and a small-time local leader.
Kalyan Lok Sabha constituency consists of six assembly segments Ambernath, Ulhasnagar, Kalyan East, Dombivli, Kalyan Rural, and Mumbra-Kalwa. Of these, only Kalwa-Mumbra has an Opposition MLA with the voters in the rest of the seats having historically voted for the BJP and Shiv Sena. That's one major reason why Shinde won the 2019 elections with a margin of 3.44 lakh votes and a margin of 2.5 lakh votes in 2014.
The other reason for Shinde's massive victory in the past two elections was the prevailing Modi wave and the synergy between the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance. But that synergy has been missing this time due to the infighting in Mahayuti and bitterness between Shinde and party leaders in the BJP.
A recent example of rising tensions between Shinde and local BJP leaders was the incident where Shiv Sena leader Mahesh Gaikwad was allegedly shot by BJP MLA Ganpat Gaikwad in Maharashtra's Ulhasnagar in February. The shooting took place inside the cabin of a senior cop at the Hill Line police station where the two politicians had arrived to file a complaint over a land dispute. After that incident, Gaikwad openly claimed that CM Shinde and his son forced him to take the law into his hands as Mahesh Gaikwad instigated him allegedly based on the directions from the father and son pair.
Even today, supporters of Gaikwad are still fuming over the incident, leading to much bitterness within the Mahayuti. In June of last year, the Dombivali unit of the BJP accused local police of falsely implicating local BJP leader Nandu Joshi in a molestation case. The unit refused to cooperate with the Shiv Sena and boycotted CM Shinde's events. Eventually, the BJP leaders had to get involved to pacify these party workers.
Besides this, tensions had arisen in Kalyan before Shinde’s candidature was announced, with BJP leaders repeatedly requesting that the candidate from the seat must be someone who will contest on the party’s ‘lotus’ symbol. Local MLA and BJP leader Ravindra Chavan seemingly resolved the issue by conceding the candidature to Shinde and burying the hatchet.
All of this infighting in the Mahayuti has fuelled speculation on how the BJP is contributing to Shinde's victory.
Meanwhile, Rane seems to be campaigning largely based on the sympathy factor for the Thackeray faction. As of now, she could possibly secure more votes than Shinde in the Kalwa-Mumbra constituency due to the larger presence of minority voters. Apart from this, Rane is using the lingering tensions among the Shinde camp and BJP workers over the Gaiwkad shooting incident to secure votes in the Kalyan east constituency, even bringing in Sulabha Gaikwad, the wife of Ganpat Gaikwad for her rallies.
Despite facing a weak challenge from Rane, the infighting in Mahayuti and disgruntled leaders and party workers pose a headache for Shinde. A lot hinges on Kalyan for the Shinde camp, including the CM Shinde’s influence which is at stake in the constituency.