When Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde stood before Shiv Sena workers on the 60th day of the party’s original founding and called himself the Tiger, he was drawing on a deep tape of images in Maharashtra politics. Bal Thackeray, a cartoonist, was often depicted as a roaring tiger, the cherished emblem of the Shiv Sena, which he founded. This was Shinde’s last claim to Bal Thackeray’s Iron Fist legacy.
This came in the middle of his not-so-veiled attempt to further divide Cena with his mentor’s son Uddhav Thackeray, four years after most of the party’s names and symbols were snatched away.
The Rumbling Tiger has been synonymous with the Undivided Party since its early years, growing from a social group seeking jobs for Marathas Manos (layman) in the 1960s and 1970s to a regional political power from the 1980s onwards.
The attempt to capture six of the nine Lok Sabha MPs led by Uddhav (UBT) has reportedly been dubbed ‘Operation Tiger’ by Shinde’s camp. The Uddhav team’s responses also draw from the animal kingdom.
What Shinde said, and how Uddhav’s team responded
“This tiger is in front of you,” news agency ANI reported that Shinde told party workers on Friday. Then came some canine interference. “Kuttey jhund mein aake bhaunkte hain, sher akela aata hai – Dogs bark in groups, and the lion comes alone.
Shinde also defended his decision to split Sena for the 2022-2023 season. “People support the decision we made four years ago,” he said.
He moved on to other animals at this point: “A wolf wearing a tiger skin does not become a tiger. Four years ago, these same wolves threatened me, saying, ‘You have to come to Mumbai,’ ‘You have to pass through Worli.’” Does anyone own Mumbai?
Sena’s (UBT) response came on social media, with some scathing metaphors. Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut posted an image on X with Hindi text that translates to: “Some people are really dogs, but they are not loyal.”
He commented on it: “Jay Maharashtra.
Reference history
The Tiger Reference has a long history in this particular political dispute. When similar fears of ‘Operation Tiger’ surfaced in an earlier episode – Shinde’s camp claimed that several UBT MPs were in touch – it was Arvind Sawant, the party’s Lok Sabha leader, who dismissed them with ‘Tiger zinda hai’, ‘the tiger is alive’, borrowing the title of Salman Khan’s 2017 blockbuster in which Khan’s character, a secret agent, survived against the odds.
This time, though the mutiny was no longer just a rumor, Sawant’s tone also changed. “Who is a tiger? Are incompetent people only tigers? The media is making all this noise,” he told reporters.
Uddhav’s son, Aditya Thackeray, published on X, and directed his fire at the rebellious MPs without metaphors but without a dearth of adjectives.
“Once again, we are witnessing a shocking example of dirty politics,” he said. He added: “These shameless, ungrateful, and corrupt people, who won in 2024 because of certain people, are now betraying them.”
The Shinde camp’s stated explanation for the mutiny is a claim that Raut said regional parties should join the Congress. Clarifying the theory based on Raut’s statements about the broader national opposition, Uddhav Thackeray rejected any such reading at an event on Friday marking the founding of the original Sena. “The Shiv Sena was not born to blend in with anyone,” he told party workers. “It was created to fight for the rights of the Marathi people and protect Hindutva.”
The Hindutva charge is at the heart of almost everything Shinde has said since June 2022 as the rationale for his rebellion. At the time, in his social media posts from Guwahati using the hashtag #HindutvaForever while leading the rebellion, Shinde had termed the alliance between the Sena, NCP and Congress at that time as “unnatural”.
Among the MLAs who were with him, he said they went with him to Guwahati in BJP-ruled Assam “alone and for their Hindutva mission.” “They are here for the ideals of Hindutva, the ideals of Balasaheb,” he added. The rebels’ main objection was Uddhav Thackeray’s decision in 2019 to ally with the Congress and NCP to form the MVA government, after separating from its “natural ideological ally” the Bharatiya Janata Party. Shinde argued that this had damaged the Hindutva ideology championed by Sena founder Bal Thackeray. Four years later, the six rebel lawmakers cited the same fear — that they would be moved toward Congress — as their reason for action.
