Maharashtra: MVA Govt Hits Another Rough Patch With Uddhav Thackeray's Stand On NPR

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance in Maharashtra has hit a new roadblock with chief Minister and Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday indicating his support to the Centre on the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) National Register of Citizens (NRC). Uddhav Thackeray's position is diametrically opposite to that of the Shiv Sena's allies in government, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress.

The Shiv Sena and the NCP and Congress have had their fair share of bumps over the past two and a half months. Partners in the tripartite alliance bickered over cabinet portfolios to begin with.

Then came a major showdown between NCP and Shiv Sena over passing on the Elgar Parishad, Bhima Koregaon case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). NCP supremo Sharad Pawar was critical of the Centre for taking over what he said was under the jurisdiction of the Maharashtra State government. He dismissed as laughable the conspiracy to assassinate Prime Minister Modi.

Pawar was equally unsparing of the Maharashtra chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray for handing over the case to the NIA without a process of consultation. The Maharashtra chief minister clarified that Elgar Parishad and the one relating to violence at Bhima-Koregaon were two different cases. He had passed on the former to NIA, but retained the latter, he asserted.

Thackeray's clarification did not appear to go down well with the NCP chief. Moreover, the chief minister had passed over the investigation to NIA overruling the Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, who expressed his unhappiness in the matter.

However, the chief minister's latest assertion that there was nothing wrong with CAA and that NPR was a census-like exercise is likely to put the ties of the alliance partners under severe strain. In the end, power could prove to be the proverbial glue which would help the allies in the MV a government hold together.