Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday held a meeting with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, seeking to ally with the fringe political outfit for the Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP’s latest hunt for allies betrayed the party’s push to maximise Lok Sabha seats tally and the apprehension of a tough challenge from the Opposition INDIA bloc in the key western state.
In Maharashtra, the BJP already has two major allies — chief minister Eknath Sinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP faction — and has been struggling to finalise an amicable seat-sharing arrangement with them.
Raj Thackeray, who is the estranged cousin of Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, met Shah at his New Delhi residence. BJP insiders said the MNS could be offered one Lok Sabha seat in Mumbai to contest under the NDA.
“I was told to come to Delhi. So I came. Let’s see,” the MNS chief said ahead of meeting Shah, indicating that the BJP had reached out to him. He, however, did not speak after the meeting and left for Mumbai. BJP insiders said that the MNS leader was pressing for two Lok Sabha seats and had been told that he would be offered just one. “It’s for him (Raj) to take a call now. Most likely he will agree and the announcement will be made in Mumbai,” a BJP leader said.
The MNS has very little foot-hold in Maharashtra and Raj Thackeray’s influence is limited to some pockets in Mumbai. The BJP’s rush to ally with him showed that the party wanted to use the Thackeray surname and cobble together all the votes to counter the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena.
If the BJP clinches an alliance with the MNS, it would virtually amount to resurrecting the leader known for making provocative remarks against north Indians settled in Mumbai. He had fallen out with Uddhav in 2006 and floated the MNS. His party shone in the 2009 Maharashtra polls, winning 13 seats, but after that, it was a downward journey. In 2014, the MNS won just one Assembly seat and in 2019 none.
The BJP and the erstwhile Shiv Sena (then headed by Uddhav) had won 41 of the state’s 48 Lok Sabha seats in 2019.
