Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Tuesday met with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Home Amit Shah in Delhi amid intense anticipation that the MNS would join the ruling ‘Mahayuti’ coalition in Maharashtra and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Central level.
While the buzz of the MNS forging an alliance with the BJP is hardly new, Mr. Thackeray’s arrival in the capital on Monday night, and his subsequent meetings with the BJP brass – first with national general secretary Vinod Tawde in a plush Delhi hotel, and later with Mr. Shah – strongly hinted that a pre-Lok Sabha deal between the two parties could be finally sealed.
The MNS president, who had a half-hour meeting with Mr. Shah, was accompanied by his son, MNS leader Amit Thackeray and Mr. Tawde.
According to sources, the meeting with Mr. Shah was effected by the mediation of Maharashtra BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, who reportedly met with Mr. Thackeray at least thrice in the past few days before his Delhi visit.
Sources also said the MNS was interested in the Mumbai South and the Nashik Lok Sabha seats.
While the MNS’ Marathi-speaking vote-base in Mumbai South could help the BJP in combating incumbent Arvind Sawant, the incumbent MP from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), Mr. Thackeray’s party still retains a core base in Nashik, where it had notched impressive gains in past civic body elections.
Following his return to Mumbai, Mr. Thackeray held a meeting of his MNS party leaders including Bala Nandgaonkar and Avinash Abhyankar.
“The talks between Raj saaheb and Amit Shah were positive. There will be one more meeting [of MNS party leaders] after which a decision [on an alliance] will be made. We expect this to happen within a couple of days,” Mr. Nandgaonkar, a former three-term MLA, told reporters in Mumbai.
He said that while Mr. Thackeray’s meeting with Mr. Shah and the BJP top brass was specifically about the Lok Sabha election, there was no formula discussed as such, but that the MNS did express its wish to contest on certain seats.
Mr. Nandgaonkar had previously contested the Mumbai South Lok Sabha seat twice but lost both times. When asked whether he would be the MNS’ candidate for the same seat this time, Mr. Nandgaonkar said, “There has been no discussion as yet on whose names will be forwarded for which seats. That is the party high command’s prerogative.”
Despite the MNS not having a single MLA or MP across Maharashtra, the BJP hopes to make use of Mr. Thackeray’s still extant Marathi-speaking vote-bases in the Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Nashik civic bodies, particularly to challenge Mr. Raj Thackeray’s estranged cousin – former CM and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray.
Observers say that the adhesion of Mr. Raj Thackeray, still considered a crowd puller with his distinctive oratory leavened by savage lampooning of his opponents, would be an undeniable “psychological boost” for the BJP which could then claim to have a Thackeray clan member on their side.
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 election as well as the 2019 State and national elections.
Following its rout in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election, an atrophied MNS had changed its ideological direction by veering towards ‘Hindutva’ politics, signalled by Mr. Thackeray’s adoption of a saffron flag incorporating Chhatrapati Shivaji’s royal seal or ‘Rajmudra’ in 2020.
Since then, the MNS has inched ever closer to the BJP in an attempt to seize the ‘Hindutva’ space from Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) – the common adversary of CM Eknath Shinde’s rival Shiv Sena faction, the BJP, and the MNS.
Meanwhile, the BJP top brass in Maharashtra welcomed parleys between Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Shah, with Mumbai’s BJP president Ashish Shelar remarking that the “Mahayuti Parivar will get bigger” with the adhesion of the MNS.
Earlier, senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari, in an interview to a vernacular channel, had remarked that Mr. Raj Thackeray embodied all the “best qualities of Bal Thackeray”.
Sanjay Shirsat of the ruling Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, too, expressed happiness at the MNS’ possible entry into the Mahayuti, while Chhagan Bhujbal of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP faction said Mr. Raj Thackeray was always welcome into the ruling coalition.
However, Mr. Raj Thackeray’s cousin, Uddhav Thackeray lashed out at the BJP for attempting “to steal a Thackeray family member” in order to garner votes in Maharashtra.
“First, they stole my father’s name [alluding to the rebel Eknath Shinde-led faction claiming to be the real Sena]. Now, they are trying to steal another Thackeray. Well, take him. The BJP has realized if they want to get votes in Maharashtra, Modi’s name will not do…only Thackeray’s name can assure that,” quipped Uddhav Thackeray.
