Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is holding closed-door high-level meetings in Mumbai and New Delhi as part of its strategic planning for the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections.
A group of leaders feel that if the BJP asks Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray to contest against his cousin in five or six constituencies in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), which includes Mumbai and Thane, it will make it easier for him to take on Uddhav Thackeray in the upcoming elections.
Many members of the BJP think tank are ready to give up seats to the MNS and support its candidates in various constituencies in the city and suburbs. For the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has chosen Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the seat allocation formula. Though Raj Thackeray voiced support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP at a rally at Shivaji Park in the final stages of the campaign, the BJP did not allot him any constituency in the seat allocation formula.
Raj Thackeray talks about his candidacy for the election
Raj had announced that his party would not contest any seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the party was not keen on contesting in the 2024 elections either. Now, looking at the results in Mumbai South constituency, where Shinde’s candidate Yamini Jadhav was defeated, and Mumbai North constituency, where his candidate Ravindra Waikal won narrowly, many BJP think tank leaders believe that Raj Thackeray will be a better option than Shinde’s party in many constituencies in Mumbai.
Statement by senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders
One former Maharashtra minister, a very senior BJP leader, said he had suggested to the party that Raj Thackeray’s candidates be given seats like Mazgaon in south Mumbai, Dadar and Worli in central Mumbai, and also many seats in Mumbai’s eastern suburbs, which have a large Marathi-speaking voter base.
“If Raj joins our alliance, he will be the best face to counter Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena and his supporters feel that he can take on Aditya Thackeray’s party in Worli, where Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena did not make a significant margin, though it won the Mumbai South Central constituency seat in the recent Lok Sabha elections,” the party leader said.
BJP central leadership expresses dissatisfaction over party’s performance in Mumbai
A party leader said the BJP’s central leadership had expressed dissatisfaction with the party’s performance in Mumbai city and suburbs, where it had won all six Assembly seats in the region in the 2019 elections.
Party leaders were particularly unhappy that they were unable to field an experienced, well-known figure in the Mumbai North Central constituency, and were forced to nominate a veteran legal professional who had entered politics just a few weeks before the election.
The leaders have asked the state government to ensure that a similar mistake is not repeated in the state assembly elections and, if necessary, said it could concede a seat in the constituency to a coalition partner that has more influence in that constituency. The BJP has almost perfected this strategy in Mumbai and the MMR region and Raj Thackeray’s party will benefit from it in the state assembly elections.
Published: Saturday, June 15, 2024 08:46 AM IST
