Taking a hard line towards fractious voices within his party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Thursday ‘removed’ Pune city president Vasant More from his post following the latter’s objections to Mr. Thackeray’s recent speech demanding the removal of loudspeakers from mosques and countering the Azaan with Hanuman Chalisa.
Mr. More, a long–time associate of Mr. Thackeray, was considered one of the important faces of the MNS in Pune district since the inception of the party in 2006.
Following a meeting of MNS leaders from Pune at his residence in Mumbai on Thursday, Mr. Thackeray announced that Mr. More would no longer continue as the Pune city chief of the MNS while appointing MNS corporator Sainath Babar in his stead.
“I am not upset with Mr. Thackeray nor have I been ‘removed’ as is being said…I had myself expressed the wish that I would not continue in this post after May,” said Mr. More, who was neither invited to Mumbai for the meeting nor was kept in the loop regarding his ‘dismissal’.
In his April 2 speech on the occasion of ‘Gudi Padwa’ (the Marathi New Year), Mr. Thackeray, advocating a hard ‘Hindutva’ line, demanded the ruling tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government to remove loudspeakers from mosques; else his party workers would do so by force and play the Hanuman Chalisa in their stead.
However, his speech has met with distinctly mixed reactions by his partymen like Mr. More, who refused to implement it for fear of alienating their Muslim voters.
The MNS has only two corporators — Mr. More and Mr. Babar — in the cash–rich Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) which is dominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and which goes to the polls later this year.
Following Mr. Thackeray’s speech, Mr. More openly said such a stance would severely affect his re–election prospects in the 2022 PMC election and remarked that his ward must remain peaceful.
Both Mr. More, who was elected from Katraj in 2017 and Mr. Babar, who was elected from Kondhwa, have a significant Muslim population in their respective civic wards – many of whom are their supporters.
“I have been with Raj Thackeray for the last 27 years. So, there is no question of my being upset with his decision. At the same time, a number of my Muslim constituents have expressed consternation following his April 2 speech and I have received calls from mosques as well,” Mr. More said.
Congratulating Mr. Babar’s appointment, Mr. More said the former was his “political legatee” and that their friendship dated back to 2009.
“As a party secretary, I will continue working under Mr. Babar’s direction. Even if that post [party secretary] is taken away from me, I will continue working as an ordinary MNS worker,” he said.
Mr. More denied suggestions of joining any other party, remarking that while he had received many offers from political parties, he was an MNS man through and through and had stood shoulder–to–shoulder with Mr. Thackeray since the party’s beginnings.
Once a power–broker in the Assembly and civic body elections, the MNS had notched up impressive performances in the 2012 polls to the Pune and Nashik civic bodies, emerging as the single–largest party in Nashik and racing ahead of the Congress and the BJP in Pune, second only to Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
Since then, haphazard election campaigning coupled with internal bickering have seen the MNS literally implode in Maharashtra with Mr. Thackeray losing ground in the erstwhile power centres in Nashik and Pune.
