MNS chief Raj Thackeray.
Credit: PTI Photo
Mumbai: For the charismatic Raj Thackeray, the 2024 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections, are a make-or-break moment.
Raj, who is going solo in this year's polls has been telling the people not to get scared of "there is no alternative" theory propagated by bigger parties.
Rightly, as Raj draws inspiration from Ekalavya, the character from epic Mahabharata.
A poem penned by Dr Vageesh Saraswat, a journalist-writer and filmmaker, who is a senior functionary of MNS, is liked by Raj.
“Ekalavya anghuta katwakar, hamesha chatpatayange. Satya ka virodh Drona ki mazboori hai. Rajguru ki padvi zaroori hai. Dronacharya badal nahin sakte. Badal nahi sakte Kaurav aur Pandav. Magaar badal sakte hai Ekalavya. Shraddha ke shaap se ho sakte hain mukt” - these couplets from ’Eklavya ka Angutha’ sums up his challenges.
Raj is an excellent cartoonist and caricaturist and an orator-par-excellence like his late uncle and mentor.
The 56-year-old founder of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has decided to maintain an equidistant approach to the BJP-led Maha Yuti and the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi.
The nephew of late Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray, he is the estranged cousin of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, the now head of Shiv Sena (UBT).
The polls are also important as Raj’s son Amit Thackeray too is going to play a crucial role.
There is already a growing demand that Amit should contest the polls, however, as a family they are set to take a call.
“Give Maharashtra in my hands…give Maharashtra in our hands…see how we transform it…this time…'na yuti, na aghadi’,” Raj said in the run up to the polls making his stand clear.
Proposing his cousin Uddhav Thackeray’s name for Shiv Sena Presidentship in 2003 at the famous Mahabaleshwar conclave to coming out of Shiv Sena fold in 2005 and raising MNS on March 9, 2006 was not an easy task for him.
Life was full of challenges as he had to start from scratch.
In the last two decades, Raj has come a long way, which includes successes and failures.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, though MNS did not win any seats, it damaged the prospects of the Sena-BJP saffron alliance in Mumbai - and in Vidhan Sabha polls won 11 of the 288 seats and damaged the prospects of Sena and BJP in urban pockets.
In 2014, the MNS could not win a single seat in Lok Sabha polls but managed just one seat in the Assembly.
In 2019, Raj’s party did not contest the Lok Sabha polls but addressed a dozen rallies targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah - and became close to NCP-Congress. However, in the Vidhan Sabha, his party could win only one seat.
The year 2019 was a turning point when Shiv Sena broke away from BJP and joined hands with Congress-NCP to launch Maha Vikas Aghadi and the government was toppled in June 2022 by Shinde with the help of BJP. A year later in June 2023, Ajit Pawar raised a banner of revolt against his uncle and mentor Sharad Pawar and became Deputy Chief Minister and claimed the NCP party.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP reached out to him and he met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi. He decided not to contest the polls, however, extended support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It must be mentioned that Raj is an admirer of the Gujarat model of Modi, who was previously the Gujarat Chief Minister and had even toured the state in August 2011.
What Raj needs is a magical performance and surpassing the 2009 success.
Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls will take place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP will be going up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress try to make their mark. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faces a new challenge after Hemant Soren's recent arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP. The Haryana election resulted in a shock loss for Congress, which was looking to galvanize on the Lok Sabha poll performance, while J&K also saw the grand old party eventually stepping away from the cabinet, with Omar Abdullah's JKNC forming government. It remains to be seen if the upcoming polls help BJP cement its position further or provide a fillip to I.N.D.I.A. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.
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