MVA's collapse, aftermath kept political pot boiling in Maharashtra throughout the year

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) experiment imploded in 2022 putting a question mark on the political future of Uddhav Thackeray even as the massive split in the Shiv Sena and its aftermath kept the political pot boiling in Maharashtra throughout the year.

Maharashtra, which was governed by the Congress till 1977-78 and later in the early 90s, has been following coalition politics centred around aghadis (coalition fronts of the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party) and yuti (Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party). The upheaval in the Sena resulting in the collapse of the MVA government was the second such instance in the state’s political history.

According to a report of PTI, As a minister in 1978, Sharad Pawar had led a rebellion and toppled the Vasantdada Patil government to become the chief minister at the age of 38.

The two-and-half-year-old coalition led by Thackeray, comprising his Sena, NCP and Congress, plunged into a crisis on June 21 when Shinde and his supporters, including a few independent legislators who had earlier sided with the MVA, moved to Surat in the BJP-ruled Gujarat. The group then moved to Guwahati in Assam, another BJP-run state.

On June 29, Uddhav Thackeray resigned as the CM ahead of a floor test. The next day, Shinde took oath as the chief minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis as the deputy CM.

When it was widely anticipated that Fadnavis would return as the chief minister, he announced that he would stay out of the new government and it would be led only by Shinde. But the BJP high command publicly ordered Fadnavis to join the government as the deputy CM.

MVA's troubles had started mounting on June 10, when the BJP won three of the six seats in the Rajya Sabha elections and a Sena candidate lost. On June 20, of the 10 seats in the Legislative Council elections, Sena and its allies were expected to win six seats, but won only five with the BJP bagging the same number of seats due to cross-voting from the MVA.

On June 28, Fadnavis met Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and demanded a motion of no-confidence against Thackeray. On June 29, Koshiyari ordered that a trust vote be held and the assembly strength of the government be proved by June 30. The Shiv Sena immediately moved the Supreme Court against this order. On the same day, the SC refused to stay the no-confidence motion and ordered it to be conducted the next day. The court said, The floor of the House is the only way to settle all issues. A few hours later, Thackeray resigned.

The Supreme Court will take up the clutch of pleas tied to the state’s political crisis on January 13.