Gudhi Padwa Rally: Raj Thackeray's bid to revive MNS by reverting to old tactics

Since leaving Shiv Sena and forming his own party in 2005, Raj Thackeray has been struggling to establish his political identity.

"Those who refuse to speak Marathi in Mumbai will get a slap on their face," threatened MNS chief Raj Thackeray in his annual Gudhi Padwa rally at Shivaji Park in Mumbai. While his statement indicates his reversal to "Marathi," politics, it also underlines his political journey characterised by ideological inconsistency which swings between Hindutva and linguistic politics.

The long-pending local body elections in Maharashtra, delayed for the past four years, may finally take place by the end of this year. These elections are seen as crucial for the political survival of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray. In the Gudhi Padwa rally, Thackeray has made it clear that he will once again adopt the Marathi identity issue to reclaim his lost political ground in the state.

Since leaving Shiv Sena and forming his own party in 2005, Raj Thackeray has been struggling to establish his political identity. Despite repeatedly shifting his party’s ideology, electoral numbers have never been in his favor.

Recently, Thackeray organised a book exhibition outside his residence at Shivaji Park, named Abhijat Pustak Pradarshan, where thousands of books from Marathi publishers were showcased. While Thackeray is known to be a book lover and has a well-stocked library at his home, the exhibition also carried a political message—he wanted to assert that he remains the most prominent advocate for Marathi speakers in the state.

He also met Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani and demanded that additional fees be charged to patients from other states seeking treatment at Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) hospitals. According to Thackeray, the influx of patients from outside Maharashtra has put immense pressure on Mumbai’s public healthcare system. He proposed that only those with a local address on their Aadhaar card should be treated at standard rates.

Whether it is organizing a Marathi book exhibition in an election year or demanding higher hospital fees for out-of-state patients, Raj Thackeray’s recent actions indicate that he is once again embracing Marathi identity politics. This ideology had brought him limited success in the past. When he founded MNS in 2006, he aggressively championed the Marathi cause. His campaign against North Indians turned violent in 2008, sparking riots across Maharashtra. This polarization benefited him in the 2009 assembly elections when MNS contested for the first time and won 13 seats. He also managed to secure the mayoral post for his party in the Nashik Municipal Corporation.

However, Thackeray’s political success was short-lived. In the 2014 and 2019 assembly elections, MNS managed to win only one seat each, and in 2024, it failed to secure even a single seat. The party also lost control of Nashik Municipal Corporation. In the 2017 Mumbai civic elections, MNS won seven seats, but six of its corporators later defected to Shiv Sena. In the last assembly elections, Thackeray launched his son Amit Thackeray into politics by fielding him from the Mahim constituency, but he finished third, losing to the Shiv Sena (Thackeray faction) candidate.

Frustrated with repeated electoral setbacks, Raj Thackeray experimented with his party’s ideology. Once a staunch advocate of "Maharashtra Dharma" over religious identity, he embraced Hindutva in February 2020. With Shiv Sena aligning with Congress under the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition, Thackeray saw an opportunity to fill the space for a hardline Hindutva party, as Uddhav Thackeray’s version of Hindutva lacked anti-Muslim rhetoric. He launched a campaign against loudspeakers in mosques, instructing his workers to play Hanuman Chalisa if Azaan was heard. To reinforce his Hindutva image, he started wearing saffron attire in public, and his party workers began referring to him as a "Hindu Jananayak" (Hindu leader) in banners and posters. Simultaneously, he stopped making statements against non-Marathis.

While MNS’s ideology changed, voter sentiment did not. By 2024, MNS had become a party with zero legislators—outperformed even by AIMIM from Telangana (1 seat) and the Samajwadi Party from Uttar Pradesh (2 seats). To stay politically relevant, Raj Thackeray must deliver a strong performance in the upcoming Mumbai civic elections. The key question remains: Can the Marathi identity politics that worked for him 16 years ago still be a winning formula today?