Bai's Hyatt Hotel. Fifty-Six Mlas of the Shiv Sena
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OC ExclusivE The many lives of v.K. Krishna menon www 60 REGISTERED NO. DL(ND)-11/6068/2018-20;REGISTERED NO. U(C)-88/2018-20; FARIDABAD/05/2017-19 LICENSED POSTWITHOUTTO PREPAYMENT RNI NO. 28587/75 28587/75 NO. RNI RIDING THE TIGER CAN UDDHAV THACKERAY MANAGE THE UNPRECEDENTED TRIPLE ALLIANCE HE HEADS IN MAHARASHTRA? PLUS HOW THE BJPLOST THE PLOT DIGITAL EDITION OC EXCLUSIVE THE MANY LIVES OF V.K. KRISHNA MENON wwww.indiatoday.in DECEMBER 9, 2019 `606 REGISTERED NO. DL(ND)-11/6068/2018-20; U(C)-88/2018-20; LICENSED FARIDABAD/05/2017-19 TO POST WITHOUTREGISTERED PREPAYMENT NO. RIDING RNI NO. 28587/75 RNI NO. THE TIGER CAN UDDHAV THACKERAY MANAGE THE UNPRECEDENTED TRIPLE ALLIANCE HE HEADS IN MAHARASHTRA? PLUS HOW THE BJP LOST THE PLOT EXCLUSIVE MULTIMEDIA CONTENT ONLY FOR IPAD COVER STORY LOSING THE PLOT COVER STORY RIDING THE TIGER COVER STORY STAYING PAWAR UPFRONT RETURN OF THE JIHADI SMART MONEY THE REWARDS OF BEING A GOOD BORROWER #RIDINGTHETIGER SUBSCRIBE NOW www.indiatoday.in/digitalmagazines FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF he promiscuity of Indian political parties is well governance and jobs dominate the electoral narrative. Just known. The past four decades are riddled with six months ago, the BJP came to power at the Centre with a instances of the strangest bedfellows getting thumping majority by itself, even better than its performance together to be in power. The most recent of course in the previous general election. In December 2017, the party is the soap opera played out in Maharashtra. Two ruled over 71 per cent of India’s land mass. Two years later, Tparties—the BJP and the Shiv Sena—which had been allies the figure is down to 40 per cent. It now rules, alone or with for the past 30 years fought the election together. They got a allies, four large states and 12 smaller ones. mandate to rule the state jointly, but fell out after the results The BJP’s decline in the states comes even as the party were declared on October 24 over the Sena’s claims that they has increased its dependence on every tool in the political had a 50:50 arrangement to share the chief ministership. The playbook, from engineering defections to form governments BJP denied it had made any such promise and, after a 16-day to rewarding defectors with plum posts. Arunachal Pradesh, stand-off, decided to call the Sena’s bluff. Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Goa... there is a However, much to the BJP’s consternation, the long list of states where the BJP has engineered Sena made good on its threat—after lengthy defections to undermine governments. The tripartite negotiations, the Sena, the NCP and party targets corruption, but has no qualms the Congress decided to form a government. about accepting tainted leaders into its fold. It The real drama, however, was yet to begin. has also been accused of using central investi- Before the coalition could present themselves gative agencies against its political opponents. to the governor to prove that they had a Not being able to form a government in India’s majority, the BJP jumped the gun. In an un- wealthiest state, Maharashtra, has dented its precedented move, Prime Minister Narendra image of electoral invincibility. Despite being Modi invoked Rule 12 of the Government of the largest party in the state, it was outmanoeu- India (Transaction of Business) Rules, which vred by the veteran Sharad Pawar. gives the prime minister emergency powers to Most importantly, one of the reasons for take a unilateral decision and get ex-post facto the BJP’s phenomenal resurgence was its clean approval from the cabinet. image and the impression that This provision is used only to it took the moral high ground. meet a situation of extreme Once it claimed to be the urgency or unforeseen con- party with a difference. With tingency. This was obviously its recent actions, it is now a neither. This rule was used party that is no different from to wake up the President the rivals it once attacked. The early in the morning to revoke lustre of rectitude has faded. President’s rule in the state to Our cover story, ‘Rid- enable the governor to preside ing the Tiger’, put together over the swearing-in of a so- by our bureau, Senior As- called coalition government sociate Editor Kiran D. Tare, of BJP chief minister De- Senior Deputy Editor Uday vendra Fadanvis and deputy Raj Chengappa receives the award from Vice-President Mahurkar and Senior Editor chief minister Ajit Pawar of Venkaiah Naidu and I&B minister Prakash Javadekar; Kaushik Deka, examines the the NCP, who claimed he had above, the December 31, 2018 cover story rise of Uddhav Thackeray as the support of 32 MLAs. This an unlikely chief ministerial formality, too, was completed candidate. Now the big ques- by 7.50 am. tion is, how long will this coming together of bitter enemies It was at this point that the wily Maratha strongman, in Maharashtra last? Will the glue of power prove stronger Sharad Pawar, stepped in to protect his flock of MLAs and than their conflicting ideologies? Also, whether the BJP has ultimately persuaded nephew Ajit Pawar to return to the learnt any lessons from this experience. We will know soon NCP fold. The result was that the Fadnavis government enough, in the forthcoming state elections. lasted only 80 hours, leaving the BJP red-faced and its erst- while ally, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, firmly in the chief n a different note, I would like to congratulate our minister’s chair. It is a mystery to me how astute, seasoned Group Editorial Director (Publishing) Raj Chen- politicians like Amit Shah and the prime minister could not O gappa for being the joint winner of the Press Council only let this happen but also be a party to this humiliation. of India’s National Award for Rural Journalism 2019 for the There are several lessons the BJP can learn from Maha- india today cover story ‘The New Bharat’ in the issue dated rashtra. It cannot afford to take its allies for granted even December 31, 2018. It is always good to be recognised for our when it is the senior partner. Also reinforced is the fact that efforts at chronicling the India story as it unfolds. people tend to vote differently in state and central elections. Issues such as national security, the dilution of Article 370 and the image of a strong leader play out well on the national stage, but at the regional level, issues like the quality of (Aroon Purie) DECEMBER 9, 2019 INDIA TODAY 1 UPFRONT LEISURE RETURN OF THE THE BARD OF www.indiatoday.in KERALA JIHADI PG 3 BENARES PG 45 CHAIRMAN AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Aroon Purie CHILDREN AND A Q&A WITH VICE CHAIRPERSON: Kalli Purie STEPMOTHERLY RICHA CHADHA GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Raj Chengappa STATE PG 9 PG 54 GROUP CREATIVE EDITOR: Nilanjan Das; GROUP PHOTO EDITOR: Bandeep Singh MANAGING EDITORS: Kai Jabir Friese, Rajesh Jha INSIDE CONSULTING EDITOR: Ajit Kumar Jha (Research) EXECUTIVE EDITORS: S. Sahaya Ranjit, Sandeep Unnithan Mumbai: M.G. Arun SENIOR DEPUTY EDITORS: Uday Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop Hyderabad: Amarnath K. Menon DEPUTY EDITOR: Shweta Punj SENIOR EDITORS: Kaushik Deka, Sasi Nair, Mumbai: Suhani Singh; Jaipur: Rohit Parihar SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Ashish Mukherjee Mumbai: Kiran Dinkar Tare; patna: Amitabh Srivastava ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Shougat Dasgupta, Chinki Sinha Kolkata: Romita Sengupta; Bhopal: Rahul Noronha; Thiruvananthapuram: Jeemon Jacob ASSISTANT EDITOR: Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri pune: Aditi S. Pai PHOTO DEPARTMENT: Vikram Sharma (Deputy Photo Editor), Yasir Iqbal (Deputy Chief Photographer), Rajwant Singh Rawat (Principal Photographer), Chandra Deep Kumar (Senior Photographer); Mumbai: Mandar Suresh Deodhar (Chief Photographer), Danesh Adil Jassawala (Photographer); Kolkata: Subir Halder (Principal Photographer); Chennai: N.G. Jaison (Senior Photographer) PHOTO RESEARCHERS: Prabhakar Tiwari (Chief Photo Researcher), Saloni Vaid (Principal Photo Researcher), Shubhrojit Brahma (Senior Photo Researcher) CHIEF OF GRAPHICS: Tanmoy Chakraborty ART DEPARTMENT: Sanjay Piplani (Senior Art Director); Angshuman De (Art Director); Devajit Bora (Deputy Art Director); Vikas Verma (Associate Art Director); Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma (Senior Designer) Siddhant Jumde (Senior Illustrator) PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT: Harish Agarwal (Chief of Production), Naveen Gupta (Chief Coordinator) CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Manoj Sharma ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Anil Fernandes (Impact) IMPACT TEAM Senior General Manager: Jitendra Lad (West) General Manager: Mayur Rastogi (North), Upendra Singh (Bangalore), Kaushiky Gangulie (East) GROUP CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER: Vivek Malhotra SALES AND OPERATIONS: D.V.S. Rama Rao, Chief General Manager Deepak Bhatt, Senior General Manager (National Sales) Vipin Bagga, General Manager (Operations) Rajeev Gandhi, Deputy General Manager (North) Syed Asif Saleem, Regional Sales Manager (West) S Paramasivam, Deputy Regional Sales Manager (South) Piyush Ranjan Das, Senior Sales Manager (East) COVER STORY After a week of high drama, EARNING Uddhav Thackeray becomes Volume XLIV Number 49; For the week Maharashtra chief minister. 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