Have Uddhav and Aaditya Thackeray Lost Maharashtra For Good?

Shiv Sena is losing second rung party leaders is the state; in a trickle in some districts and in a torrent in some other

First came the rebellion by about 40 MLAs of the Shiv Sena out of a total of 55 towards the end of June this year. This led to the ouster of the MVA government led by Shiv Sena Supremo Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister. Then the leader of the rebel camp and long time Sena loyalist Eknath Shinde became the chief minister and proved his majority on the floor of the Maharashtra assembly decisively with the support of the BJP. And now, the Lok Sabha Speaker ha recognised a 12 member group of Lok Sabha MPs as the de facto Shiv Sena. Both sides have gone to the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice N. V. Ramanna has already indicated that it is a tangle and many constitutional aspects need to be examined. Meanwhile, Shiv Sena is losing second rung party leaders is the state; in a trickle in some districts and in a torrent in some others. The natural question that needs to be asked is: Is this the end of the road for Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aaditya?

They will not give up easily. Aaditya Thackeray has already announced a state wide tour. But data from more than three decades suggest that the Thackerays will find this one a really uphill, if not impossible battle to win. There are two charts accompanying this India Tracker story. The first shows the vote share of Shiv Sena in assembly elections since 1995 when the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition first came to power. The second chart shows the number of assembly seats won by the party in the same period. Two conclusions are glaringly evident from the data: first, the Shiv Sena was never in any position to win power on its own. Its best performance in terms of seats was in 1995 when it won 73 out of 288. Its best performance in terms of vote share was in 2004 when it won close to 20% of the vote. The second conclusion is that it has become a declining force. Even in 2014, when it contested almost all the 288 seats, it managed to win just 63 (against 123 of the BJP) seats with a vote share of 19%. The hard reality is the party has never crossed the 20% vote share and never reached 100 seats in the assembly even at its peak. With so many senior leaders deserting them, how do the Thackerays rebuild whatever is left of the party?

Compare Shiv Sena with other regional parties like DMK, TRS, YSRC, BJD, TMC, RJD, SP, BSP and even AAP. All have won majorities on their own in assembly elections without needing any allies. That itself speaks volumes for the bleak future that confronts the father-son duo.