Opinion: In Sena Vs Sena, Uddhav Thackeray Still Has A Fighting Chance

Almost a year ago, political epitaphs of Uddhav Thackeray were being written. There were multiple reasons for this. A day after the party's 56th Foundation Day on June 19, Eknath Shinde, now Chief Minister, split the party, exiting with a group of legislators. At the time, Uddhav Thackeray did not know how many were deserting his ship. Many concluded that Uddhav Thackeray had taken the veil off the Thackeray mystique that Balasaheb wrapped himself in by personally eschewing power.

Barely 10 days later, on June 29, Thackeray sensed defeat in the number game. He opted for the moral high ground and submitted his resignation as chief minister. Ethical behaviour is not always rewarded in Indian politics. This again became unambiguously evident in May this year, when the Supreme Court ruled that although (then) Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari erred by calling a floor test, Uddhav Thackeray could not be reinstated because he quit before going through the test.

The verdict, however, provided him a platform from where a campaign could be launched to emerge as the sole inheritor of his father's legacy and the party. The judgment has the potential to benefit him in the long run, more than if he had failed to prove his majority in the House and was thereafter reinstated by the Supreme Court.

In that situation, Uddhav Thackeray would have been seen as a lame duck Chief Minister, only to be voted out whenever the opportunity arose, or to lose his moral pre-eminence by readmitting the 'renegade' MLAs.