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Mumbai: Exalting his party cadre to begin strengthening the party organization at the ground level, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, who began his tour of the Vidarbha region from Nagpur on Sunday, hinted that a fight against the “dominant political parties” of the region was essential if the MNS had to gain a toehold in Vidarbha region.
Thackeray, who is on a five-day tour of the Vidarbha region, reached Nagpur today where he held closed-door meetings with MNS office bearers ahead of the crucial civic polls.
According to sources, the MNS chief, who has been making efforts to revive his party’s sagging fortunes in Maharashtra, is believed to have questioned his partymen as to why were they lagging in building up the MNS in this belt which has long been dominated mainly by the Congress and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
After listening to the problems encountered by the MNS workers in building the party’s organization in Nagpur and other districts in the Vidarbha belt, the estranged cousin of Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, directed his cadre to hit the ground running and start intensive campaigning for the civic polls.
In a clarion call to his party cadres, Thackeray remarked, “Go to the voters thinking that the Nagpur municipal elections have been announced. Get to work, we want to contest every seat.”
The BJP currently dominates the 151-seat Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) where the MNS has virtually no presence.
In its 15-year-old existence, the MNS has never exerted any influence beyond fixed pockets in Mumbai city, Pune and Nashik. The MNS had notched up impressive performances in the 2012 polls to the Pune and Nashik civic bodies at a time when Thackeray was considered a potent force in Maharashtra’s political scene.
Considering his present cordial relations with the BJP, Thackeray’s intent on contesting against “established parties” poses a question mark on whether the MNS chief will go it alone in the upcoming civic polls or tacitly ally with the saffron party.
It was a flurry of meetings between Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray and top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in the past weeks had sparked widespread speculation of a possible pre-poll alliance between the BJP and the MNS ahead of the high-stakes Brihanmumbai Corporation (BMC) poll and other civic bodies.
The meetings were followed by ‘Ganpati diplomacy’ which saw Thackeray and BJP leaders like Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, as well as Chief Minister Eknath Shinde of the rebel Shiv Sena faction, visiting each other’s residences for Ganesh darshan.
But this diplomacy may prove anti-climax as a MNS general secretary speaking on conditions of anonymity earlier this week hinted that the MNS would field its candidates in all 227 wards for the Mumbai civic body polls, with the party going to the electorate on both the ‘Hindutva’ and the ‘Marathi manoos’ planks.
Raj Thackeray’s decline and fall as political force to reckon with had commenced with the MNS’ twin debacles in the 2014 parliamentary and assembly elections which left the party in utter disarray, with the slide continuing through the 2017 civic polls as well as the 2019 state and national elections.
Following the rout in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election and its general decline in the state’s politics, the MNS had changed its ideological direction by veering towards ‘Hindutva’ politics, signalled by Raj Thackeray’s adoption of a saffron flag incorporating Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s royal seal or ‘Rajmudra’ in 2020.
Since then, the MNS has politically tilted to the BJP in an attempt on the MNS’s part to seize the ‘Hindutva’ space from the Shiv Sena led by former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.
Yet, the signals coming from the MNS camp suggest that Raj Thackeray is intent on reviving his party by fielding maximum candidates for the all-important elections to the civic bodies rather than tying up with the BJP or the Shinde faction.
On the first day of his Vidarbha tour, MNS chief Raj Thackeray urged his party cadres to fight against “established parties”. Given his recent bonhomie with the BJP, Thackeray’s remarks have raised several eyebrows as the Vidarbha region is the stronghold of the BJP in Maharashtra. Thackeray’s party has been tacitly supporting the BJP over the past few months.
However, despite the recent round of ‘Ganpati diplomacy’ it is not certain whether the MNS will ally with the saffron party or not. Raj Thackeray’s five-day Vidarbha tour is aimed at rebuilding his political outfit.
