MUMBAI: With the renewed vigour with which Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray is readying his party cadres, the question raised is whether he would again join hands with his estranged cousin Uddhav Thackeray and Shiv Sena, the party he quit in 2005.
MNS successfully attracted a section of traditional Shiv Sena-BJP voters and the party won 12 Assembly seats in 2009. However, after moving closer with Narendra Modi ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the party lost its voice in the high-pitched battle between the BJP and Shiv Sena in the Assembly elections that year. MNS’ performance was dismal in local body elections after that.
Raj began revival of the party last month by launching a social media initiative. He addressed a press conference on the Elphinstone Road stampede, hours ahead of Shiv Sena’s Dussehra rally. He declared a protest march against the railway administration condemning the stampede on October 5. Raj consciously targeted the BJP and Prime Minister Modi in particular; he criticised the Congress, the NCP and even Narayan Rane who recently floated Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha. Interestingly, he didn’t touch Uddhav Thackeray or the Shiv Sena.
The feat was reciprocated by Uddhav during the Dussehra rally. A group of Sena workers, while returning from the rally at Shivaji Park, even stopped by Raj’s house and greeted him. This had not happened in the past one decade.
“It may be premature to conclude that the parties will come together,” said a senior Shiv Sena leader, adding that the Thackareys both share a good bonding and have shown several times in the past that they can keep family life and politics as two separate compartments.
Despite appeal by Sena leaders and workers in the past, the Thackerays had never come together. However, political observers feel the current state of politics in the state would make them join hands.
The BJP is sick and tired of constant bickering from the Shiv Sena, while the latter is performing a ropewalk—being the government and criticising it. If MNS is able to re-establish its appeal early enough, that would mount a pressure on Sena to shun its balancing act and take a firm stand either in favour of the BJP or against it.