Analysis | After Shiv Sena’s alliance with Congress and NCP, an ambivalent attitude to Hindutva and RSS

‘At this point, the Sena can neither afford to jettison Hindutva, nor can it confidently don its role as a militant defender of the ideology,’ says a Pune-based analyst.

Ever since its shotgun marriage with the and the Nationalist Congress Party to deprive the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of power in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena’s relationship with Hindutva and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been ambivalent at best. Earlier this week, the Sena rushed to the defence of the RSS in an editorial in the party’s mouthpiece Saamna, admonishing noted poet-lyricist . Yet only last Sunday, Sena MP Sanjay Raut, who is Saamna’s executive editor, had through his column in the paper lashed out at the RSS and the BJP-led government at the Centre for attempting to erase the contributions of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.