Why NDA is having tough time inducting Raj Thackeray in Maharashtra's ruling alliance

Days after MNS chief Raj Thackeray met Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the induction of his party in the NDA fold has been kept on hold on account of doubts over the benefit the new ally will bring to the party and apprehensions about a negative response from the BJP’s North Indian support base.

The delay is also being attributed to the ruling alliance’s proposal to the MNS to contest the elections on the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) symbol in order to keep both Marathi and North Indian voters intact. The MNS has sought two seats – Mumbai South and either Nashik or Shirdi Lok Sabha seat. However, the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde is resenting any move to allot these seats to the MNS because all the three seats that the party is eyeing has a Sena (Shinde) candidate vying to contest.

The Shinde-led Sena has sitting MPs in Nashik as well as Shirdi who are putting pressure on the CM to not allow the MNS to lay claim on these seats. In Mumbai South, Milind Deora has joined the Shiv Sena and while he has been made a Rajya Sabha member, the party is keen that Deora contests from the said seat. The MNS is expected to get the Mumbai South constituency, where its senior leader, Bala Nandgaonkar, could be the candidate.

North Indian votes

The MNS has often hit the headlines for opposing the non-Marathis working in Maharashtra, particularly Mumbai. In 2008, the MNS had kicked off a campaign against north Indians. The MNS workers had assaulted north Indian railway job aspirants claiming they were taking away jobs of Marathi people. In a recent action against non-Marathis, MNS workers on Friday tore down the boards of the shops owned by Rajasthani mobile traders in Nashik. Defending its action, MNS alleged that Rajasthani traders were doing injustice to their Marathi counterparts.

In view of the MNS’ ‘anti-north India image’, the state BJP leaders are making an assessment of how the North Indian voters would react to this alliance in Mumbai and Maharashtra. The party’s north Indian leaders have already expressed their reservations on the alliance to the state leadership, which is expected to discuss the issue with the central leadership before a decision on seat-sharing within the alliance is reached.

To resolve the issue, the ruling alliance has also proposed that the MNS contest the polls on the Shiv Sena (Shinde faction)’s bow-and-arrow symbol. A BJP leader said the move may help them avoid a division of Marathi votes while also keeping north Indian vote base intact. However, Raj Thackeray is unlikely to accept it.

After Raj met Shah in Delhi on Tuesday, another meeting was held in Mumbai on Thursday between Chief Minister Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Raj. The three leaders discussed the modalities of seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha elections. However, the other deputy chief minister, Ajit Pawar, did not attend the meeting that went on for more than one and a half hours.

BJP apprehensive

Meanwhile, state BJP leaders held an online meeting with the central leadership, including Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda, to discuss the seat-sharing within the ruling alliance. The leaders reportedly deliberated on the negative reaction from the BJP’s north Indian leaders to the possibility of the MNS joining the alliance. They expressed fear that the move will damage the BJP more in the assembly and the BMC elections. Besides, it may also affect the voting pattern in the North Indian states, they said.

Some of the prominent outfits representing the north Indian community have already threatened to vote against the BJP if it forges an alliance with the MNS. The organisations like Yadav Sangh Mumbai, Pal Seva Sangh and Akhand Rajputana Sangh have said that they will appeal to their community members not to vote for the BJP if it declares alliance with the MNS.

There is a 60 lakh strong north Indian community in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). Of these, 40 lakh people are living in Mumbai which has six Lok Sabha seats. Around 1.30 lakh people belonging to Yadav caste live in the MMR region. Majority of them work as auto-rickshaw drivers, milkmen, vegetable vendors and small shop owners.

Why BJP needs Raj?

The BJP’s move to woo Raj Thackeray had raised questions in the political circles as to why the party wants MNS, which has just one MLA in the state and does not wield much clout, in the NDA despite having major political outfits like Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP.

Experts said the BJP was apprehensive about the damage the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, riding on a sympathy wave, might cause along with Sharad Pawar's NCP and the Congress in Mumbai and its surroundings. The BJP is in no mood to take any risk this time because if Uddhav wins even a single seat in Mumbai, it will come as a big boost for his party. To counter Uddhav, the BJP is bringing influential leaders into the NDA fold.

The BJP believes that Shiv Sena's core Marathi voters are still backing Uddhav despite the split and the possibility of their votes getting transferred to the BJP-led ruling alliance are less. If a face like Raj Thackeray joins the forces with the NDA, then the efforts to wean away some of those votes can be successful.

On the other hand, this comes as a good opportunity for Raj Thackeray as well to revive the electoral fortunes of the MNS. As per the previous assembly polls, the MNS has command over just 2% of the votes. Moreover, Raj will also have a chance to fill in the shoes of the Uddhav-led Sena that has gone soft on its ‘Hindutva’ pitch after entering into an alliance with the Congress.