IN THE EYE OF A STORM
When he took over as the 19th chief minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray, the wildlife photography enthusiast-turned-politician looked like he would bring something fresh to the table. The Shiv Sena chief had formed a coalition government, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA), with two unlikely allies—the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress; he also promised to make the farmers chintamukta (tension-free) and, to demonstrate that intent, announced a farm loan waiver of up to Rs 2 lakh. He was witty and accommodating, and confident of negotiating the political churn that had brought together the Sena and the Congress, two parties with no ideological affinity. The opposition BJP predicted the three-party “autorickshaw government” (ex-chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s words) would soon collapse under the weight of its contradictions, but Thackeray proved them wrong too.
However, 10 months into the job, Thackeray is in the eye of a storm. The pandemic is raging and Maharashtra, embarrassingly, is No. 1 among the affected states with over one million cases on September 14. The state has struggled to get new industrial investments and with the Centre reneging on its GST (Goods and Sales Tax) commitments to states—and offering instead a loan window that most non-BJP states are protesting—it is battling a revenue shortfall of 60 per cent so far in the current fiscal. Also, a perception is gaining ground that the 60-year-old chief minister is yielding to the bureaucracy at a time when
