Sharad Pawar, Sena lambast Raj Thackeray, term him BJP’s ‘dummy’

Sharad Pawar ridicules Raj Thackeray, says MNS chief lacks political consistency.

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Mumbai: Following Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray’s vitriolic assault on the ruling Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday took jibes at Raj Thackeray remarking there was no consistency in his political disposition while refuting the MNS leader’s allegations of the NCP being a “casteist party”. Speaking to newspersons in Kolhapur, Pawar said that the NCP was one of the few political parties in the country with a vision to give opportunities to people of all castes, communities and tribes.

In his speech at the jam packed Gudi Padwa rally at Shivaji Park, Dadar on Saturday, the MNS chief had sharply criticised the NCP for allegedly sowing the seeds of caste politics in Maharashtra while accusing Pawar’s party of “running rings around” the two leading parties in the State, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena, led by his estranged cousin, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

The NCP shares power with the Sena and the Congress in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition in Maharashtra, which was formed after the October 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election with the objective of keeping the BJP out of power.

Ridiculing MNS chief Raj Thackeray, Pawar remarked “He goes underground for three-four months, then re-surfaces to give a speech and then disappears again. He lacks any political consistency. His party numbers can be counted on the fingers of a hand.” He then sarcastically remarked that there were no limits to what the MNS chief could say.

The NCP chief said that he failed to understand what the MNS chief had seen worth praising in the Uttar Pradesh government (BJP CM Yogi Adityanath), Pawar said that it had escaped Thackeray’s notice that farmers had been killed in UP and there were mass farmer protests against the Centre there.

Pawar further remarked “The reason why the election results turned out different (BJP’s emphatic win) is another matter…but farmers died in Lakhimpur Kheri, there were protests on the border all year round. Uddhav Thackeray’s government in Maharashtra would never have allowed this to happen. Yet, if Raj Thackeray says the UP government is good, then I do not want to comment on him.”

After lambasting the NCP, the MNS chief vented his spleen on the Sena, attacking it for ‘betraying’ the public’s mandate after the 2019 Assembly election by allying with the ideologically opposed NCP and Congress and severing ties with its long-standing natural ally, the BJP. The Sena had severed its 25-year-old alliance with the BJP after the two saffron partners fell out over the Chief Minister’s post.

Raj Thackeray remarked “He (Uddhav Thackeray) never told the public anything that the BJP had promised him the CM’s post after elections (in 2019). Even Prime Minister Modi had said that the CM would be from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and that it would be Devendra Fadnavis. Even (Union Home Minister) Amit Shah had stressed the same thing. At that time, you (Uddhav Thackeray) had not said a thing and sat quietly on the dais. It was only later that plaintive notes of the BJP’s ‘betrayal’ (not making Uddhav Thackeray the CM) were struck.”

Soon after the MNS chief’s speech, criticism rained on him from NCP and Shiv Sena leaders.

State NCP president Jayant Patil said the speech was Raj Thackeray’s attempt to cannibalize the Sena’s votes in the ensuing Mumbai civic body election. Patil remarked “There is an internal setting between the BJP and the MNS. Since the BJP cannot take on the Sena in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) alone, they are deploying their ‘B -teams’ like the MNS and the AIMIM to cut the Sena’s votes.”

Chief spokesperson of the Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, said Raj Thackeray’s address only proved conclusively that the MNS chief was the BJP’s “dummy”. “His speeches are only designed to get claps, and that too, sponsored ones,” he added.

Dubbing the MNS as BJP’s “C-team”, Sena leader Dr. Manisha Kayande castigated the MNS chief by remarking that no one could not hope to win people’s hearts merely by indulging in crass mimicry and lampooning.

Once a major powerbroker in Maharashtra, the decline and fall of the MNS in Maharashtra started with the twin back-to-back electoral setbacks in the 2014 parliamentary and assembly elections which left the party in total disarray. Its misery was further compounded following its total rout in the civic polls held in February 2017, causing many to write Thackeray- and the MNS – off as a major political force in the State.

While his party did not contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Thackeray’s spirited campaigning for the Congress and the NCP in the general election came a cropper, with the candidates of then allies – the BJP and the Sena – winning with huge margins in the very constituencies the MNS chief held his rallies.

In the 2019 Assembly election, Thackeray finally entered the poll arena and contested on 100 seats, winning only one seat (Kalyan Rural).

Following the spirited campaigning against the BJP in the Lok Sabha election last year, the MNS’ change of ideological direction came with its adoption of a saffron flag incorporating Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s royal seal or ‘Rajmudra’ in 2020.

Since then, Raj Thackeray’s party has inched ever closer to the BJP in an attempt to seize the Hindutva space from the Sena following the latter’s alliance with the NCP and the Congress. Advocating a hard-line ‘Hindutva’ in his Gudi Padwa rally, it was yet another new chapter in the MNS’ new innings.