Mumbai: Closer to each main election, there may be all the time one lingering query — which facet will Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and its chief Raj Thackeray choose.
In virtually each alternate election, Thackeray’s MNS has swung from aggressively campaigning for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or in opposition to it, developing with compelling justifications for its stance every time.
This time, the chief appears to be making ready the bottom to align with the BJP. Thackeray Tuesday met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi alongside together with his son and MNS chief Amit Thackeray at a time when the ruling allies in Maharashtra — BJP, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — have been negotiating seat sharing for the upcoming parliamentary polls.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, MNS chief Sandeep Deshpande mentioned: “Whatever decision Raj saheb takes, it will be one that benefits Maharashtra, Hindutva, the party and the Marathi population.”
Although Raj and Amit Thackeray have been tightlipped in regards to the improvement, the latter shared footage on his Facebook web page saying he was witness to a “great meeting”.
A senior BJP chief who didn’t want to be named mentioned the 2 events mentioned probably becoming a member of fingers for the election. “The MNS has demanded two seats. Today’s meeting was preliminary. There will be further discussion on what is possible and what is not,” he mentioned.
The MNS, based in 2006, tasted fast electoral success within the 2009 meeting elections and the 2012 Mumbai civic ballot. However, it has been on a downward spiral because the 2014 Lok Sabha election and has wildly swung from stance to stance, relying on the place the window of alternative for the occasion lies.
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Raj Thackeray’s wavering stances
In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the MNS contested independently though it strongly supported the candidature of Narendra Modi for prime minister. The occasion fielded 10 candidates, all of whom misplaced their deposits.
In the 2014 meeting elections in Maharashtra, Thackeray had chosen to slam all different gamers in Maharashtra, be it the undivided Shiv Sena, the undivided NCP, the BJP, or the Congress. This was a crowded state election with each the ruling and Opposition alliances of the Congress-NCP and the Shiv Sena-BJP, respectively, having break up.
The MNS fielded candidates on 219 of the 288 seats, successful only one. It needed to forfeit its deposit in 209 seats.
Then within the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Thackeray was seen to cozy as much as Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar and his undivided NCP, wanting to be part of the Opposition alliance for the ballot. The Congress was, nonetheless, in opposition to the concept contemplating the MNA had strongly focused Mumbai’s north Indian migrant inhabitants — a key vote financial institution of the Congress — in its early years.
The MNS in the end sat out the polls however created a stir by campaigning exhausting in opposition to the Modi authorities, giving some heft to the Opposition’s in any other case lackluster marketing campaign.
Thackeray addressed a sequence of rallies throughout 10 of Maharashtra’s constituencies in his quintessential firebrand type, donning the function of an ‘investigative politician.’ Armed with information, figures, newspaper clippings, movies, and a little bit of old style analysis, Thackeray went about exposing the Modi authorities’s alleged failures. His phrase “Lav re toh video” (play that video) took virtually the type of a tagline for the parliamentary elections in Maharashtra, inspiring many memes.
But, whereas these ‘exposes’ drew massive crowds and earned Thackeray accolades from the Opposition camp for talking up, it made hardly any dent within the electoral prospects of the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena camp.
Then, within the months earlier than the 2019 meeting elections, Thackeray tried to construct an anti-BJP consensus nationally by beginning a marketing campaign in opposition to Electronic Voting Machines. The efforts, although, didn’t go too far, and within the state ballot that yr the MNS discovered itself in search of votes from individuals to assist it sit within the Opposition and develop into a robust voice of dissent. The occasion, nonetheless, obtained just one seat.
Raj Thackeray within the post-MVA period
After the 2019 Maharashtra meeting election, quite a bit has modified in Maharashtra’s political panorama, and with that, the MNS, too, has modified its stance occasionally. After the 2019 meeting election, the Shiv Sena, then undivided, joined fingers with the Congress and the undivided NCP to type the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).
At the time, Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray was going through flak from the BJP in addition to a bit of Maharashtra’s inhabitants about having allegedly deserted the Hindutva agenda by tying up with the NCP and the Congress. Sensing a chance, the MNS that yr modified its flag from blue, white, orange, and inexperienced to finish saffron whereas Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s portrait discovered a spot on the occasion’s stage.
Raj Thackeray tried to mission himself as Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray’s actual successor, taking on points similar to banning loudspeakers atop mosques. And with that, the occasion began visibly transferring nearer to the BJP.
After the vertical break up within the Uddhav Thackeray-led undivided Shiv Sena, talks of the BJP becoming a member of fingers with Raj Thackeray’s MNS both by an open alliance or by a covert understanding began gaining floor additional. Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde led a rise up with a majority of MLAs, becoming a member of fingers with the BJP to type the state authorities with himself as CM.
A string of BJP leaders in addition to Chief Minister Eknath Shinde met Raj Thackeray on a number of events after the break up within the Shiv Sena, all aiming to have one Thackeray of their nook to chop any sympathy votes for his or her rival, Uddhav Thackeray.
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