Hail the chief

From time immemorial, the fact that blood is thicker than water has bedevilled issues of succession, whether in politics or business. Often, a preference for the legally direct descendant has clouded the patriarch's vision, with the result that the less competent have inherited the mantle. The script says that the brighter claimant then rebels, usually with disastrous consequences for the enterprise, be it a political party or a business house or even royalty. So what is happening in the Shiv Sena is nothing out of the ordinary. Once Bal Thackeray, the party's founder and undisputed supremo, had anointed his son Uddhav as his heir, it was only a matter of time before Raj Thackeray, his nephew, would strike out in another direction. In order to do so credibly, he had to wait for Uddhav to make a mess, and this happened when the Shiv Sena was trounced in the Malvan election last week. What made that defeat a stinging setback for the party was the fact that the winning candidate was none other than a former Shiv Sena apparatchik who had been chief minister of Maharashtra and developed his own ambitions with regard to the succession. Since timing is crucial in such matters, Raj Thackeray's revolt is likely to split the Sena. One small piece from the first split has already been taken by Rane. Now a bigger piece could be taken by Raj. What will be left is a rump over which Uddhav will rule.

The fall-out on Maharashtra politics will depend on whether there are five, four, or three main contestants left in the field. If five are left, it will mean that Udhav's rump remains something of a force, still. But if it degenerates into nothing, there will be the Congress, the BJP, Sharad Pawar's NCP, and perhaps Raj Thackeray's "new" Shiv Sena. If this happens, the state's politics will become a more complex exercise, especially since the Congress has shown a rare willingness to admit former Sainiks.

On the whole, though, it is unlikely that the Shiv Sena as a political force""regardless of who leads it""will disappear. It is true that the NCP has been slowly chipping away at its core appeal of Maratha chauvinism. There are some who believe that the Sena has lost so much ground to the NCP on this count that there is no way in which it can survive. But it must not be overlooked that in the last two decades, the Sena has acquired considerable financial clout, with which has come matching political support. In all this, it will be very interesting to see how the Congress plays its cards. Today it can congratulate itself on the manner in which the Sena is disintegrating because, all said and done, both in terms of political support and in terms of ideological opposition, it was the Sena that was its main rival in the state.