Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray met Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis at a private hotel in Bandra on Thursday. This meeting comes days after Thackeray went to Delhi and met Home Minister Amit Shah. Earlier this week, Thackeray and Shah had a closed door meeting in which, sources say, the inclusion of his party in the NDA was discussed. After the meeting, neither the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nor MNS confirmed or made the official announcement on the possible alliance ahead of Lok Sabha Election 2024.
Today’s meeting between Raj Thackeray, Shinde and Fadnavis is being seen as MNS’s next move towards forging an alliance with BJP and Shiv Sena in the state. Surprisingly, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who is also part of this alliance, was not seen at the meeting. Sources in the Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra have indicated that these are primary talks on how to accommodate the MNS and, hence, Pawar was not present in this meeting.
According to sources, Raj Thackeray-led MNS has given a proposal to contest two Lok Sabha seats – South Mumbai and Shirdi. So far, no decision has been taken regarding the alliance, but strong speculation has been making headlines that the South Mumbai seat, which BJP wanted to contest, may be given to the MNS to give a tougher fight to Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena in their bastion. Sources within the BJP said that brand ‘Thackeray’ will play a crucial role in this election.
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It is being said that if Raj Thackeray joins the BJP-led NDA alliance, this will help cut the votes of Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena. Murmurs ae strong that Raj Thackeray may emerge as a strong option against Uddhav Thackeray with the MNS chief having adopted the agenda of Hindutva and holding on to his primary agenda of ‘Marathi Manoos’ (son of the soil). Raj, with oratory skills and a huge fan following among the youth, is being seen as a big support for NDA and Mahayuti in taking their agenda to Maharashtra’s youth.
However, the NDA and Mahayuti may face the wrath of North Indian voters with the inclusion of Raj Thackeray-led MNS. In Mumbai, the Western suburban has a sizeable pocket of North Indian voters, who have been the traditional vote bank of the BJP. MNS, after its formation in 2006, had taken an anti-North Indian stand with a view to give “justice” to Marathi Manoos (son of the soil) whose jobs and employment opportunities were “snatched by migrant north Indians in a big city like Mumbai”. MNS had also resorted to vandalism and holigoonism while pushing their agenda in the initial years of party formation.
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