Maharashtra Elections | It’s make or break for Raj Thackeray

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Sujata Anandan

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray is not fighting to win — he is not playing to lose either. He made a late and reluctant entry into the electoral fray after the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), who had earlier held out hope to him vis-à-vis an alliance for the assembly elections, shut their doors on him.

Thackeray had led a unique campaign during the Lok Sabha elections this summer aimed to benefit the Congress-NCP and targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi in no uncertain terms, fact-checking the PM’s claims and exposing the exaggerations on video. However, his party's votes did not transfer to the Congress-NCP and the two parties dropped him like a hot potato after the May results.

Similarly, Thackeray may have sat out the assembly elections too, given the demoralisation of his supporters, and that he was against the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). However, NCP President Sharad Pawar, whom many observers feel is his new-found political guru, was of the view that the party would be wasted and its support base wither away without giving the workers a chance to contest a poll, even if it meant losing.

So after much hemming and hawing Thackeray jumped into the poll fray and has fielded candidates in 104 of the 288 assembly seats. In addition to this, some independent candidates have the MNS’ covert support. This has complicated the scene for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Given the recent case against him by the enforcement directorate, Thackeray has changed his tactics — and his enemies. If in the 2014 elections his target was the Shiv Sena, in 2019 it is the BJP. Towards this goal it seems that he has reached a tacit understanding with the Congress and the NCP in a select few seats, such as Kothrud in Pune and Nashik where he has withdrawn the MNS candidate to favour the NCP.

He has dropped the video replays but continues to expose the failures of the government, and has two things to tell the people in his favour: One, on how the MNS successfully ran the Nashik Municipal Corporation and why the people should vote for him on every seat his party is contesting. The second appeal is unique: “I know I cannot form the government this time, but vote for me so that I can be a formidable opposition party in the state.”

That is very ambitious; the confidence visible in the fact that with 104 candidates, the MNS is running on only some 20 seats less than the Shiv Sena and the NCP who are contesting on 124 and 125 seats respectively.

Thackeray is complicating matters for the BJP and the Shiv Sena because MNS voters who had opted for the saffron allies during the Lok Sabha polls can this time choose their own party. By default, this will benefit the Congress and the NCP. In the larger picture, Thackeray will be helping the NCP which is facing off with the Shiv Sena in many seats and the Congress against the BJP.

No one knows how Thackeray expects to work that arithmetic. However, with the main contest essentially between the two saffron allies — who are not in the best of terms and are allegedly trying to reduce the prospects of the other — local BJP leaders believe that the two warring cousins, Raj Thackeray and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, may have come to a behind-the-scenes understanding on how to take on the national party.

It is not clear if the MNS chief has the political heft to pull off such an audacious game plan, but his political survival depends on it. He may not be in alliance with the Congress or the NCP, but his candidates are receiving ample guidance at the local levels from these two parties. Pawar had already taken him under his wing and after his audience with Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi in early July, MNS workers have been fiercely defending Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi at the grassroots. That has softened the edges of the traditional animosity between the Congress and the MNS, and it is anybody's guess how this will play out at these elections.

Whatever the final outcome, the MNS will have to win in double digits and dent the BJP substantially for it to remain in the reckoning even after the elections. Raj Thackeray has taken the biggest risk of his political career. It is make or break time for both him and his party.

Sujata Anandan is a senior journalist and author. Views are personal.