Mumbai: Clinching the support of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) may help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) get more support from a section of Mumbai’s Marathi population, but it could come at a cost.
Several organisations in Mumbai representing the north Indian, Gujarati, and Marwari communities have been disillusioned by the ongoing talks between the MNS and the BJP for a tie-up ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Thackeray met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi with the former’s son Amit Thackeray earlier this week.
While Thackeray had demanded two seats for the upcoming general election from Maharashtra, the BJP is working out how best to accommodate his MNS, exploring the possibility of giving the party a Rajya Sabha and an MLC nomination, party sources said.
However, some outfits have issued statements objecting to BJP’s overtures to Thackeray, who had led an aggressive tirade against north Indians in the early years of his party’s existence while others have said they will advise their community members not to vote for the BJP if the national party accommodates the Thackeray-led MNS in its alliance with the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
Ajay Yadav of the Yadav Seva Sangh, a Mumbai-based outfit representing the north Indian Yadav community, told ThePrint: “If the BJP has some sort of covert understanding with the MNS, then it’s a different thing. But if the BJP publicly espouses and campaigns shoulder-to-shoulder with the MNS, then it will 100 percent be taking a risk. Maharashtra’s north Indian population — students, young job seekers, hawkers — have been badly humiliated by the MNS in the past.”
ThePrint tried to reach Keshav Upadhye, chief spokesperson of BJP’s Maharashtra unit, and Sandeep Deshpande, MNS leader and party spokesperson, via calls. This report will be updated if and when they respond.
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‘Will impact BJP’s Hindi votes’
The MNS was born in 2006 after Raj Thackeray walked out of the Bal Thackeray-led Shiv Sena following the Sena supremo’s decision to anoint his son, Uddhav Thackeray, as his successor.
During its early days, the MNS constantly targeted north Indians and Gujaratis in Mumbai, vandalising Gujarati signboards atop restaurants and shops and launching violent attacks against migrants from north Indian states.
On Friday, Lokshahi Ekta Party, a Mumbai-based registered political party, wrote to Union Home Minister Shah saying any alliance between the BJP and MNS would be a “great loss for the BJP in the entire Hindi belt”, adding that the percentage of votes that the MNS brings was meagre.
According to data from the Election Commission of India, the MNS polled 1.5 percent of votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, with all 10 candidates losing their deposits.
In its letter, Lokshahi Ekta Party further said: “All Hindi speaking people in Maharashtra are strongly opposing the inclusion of MNS in NDA because in the past MNS very badly treated Hindi speaking people in Maharashtra. The students were badly beaten by MNS workers and even Jain, Marwari, and Gujarati people are totally against this alliance.”
Similarly, on the day of Thackeray’s meeting with Shah, R.P. Singh, the national president of the Akhand Rajputana Sevasangh, said on his social media platform ‘X’ that the BJP will have to bear the repercussions of an alliance with the MNS not just in Maharashtra, but also in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand.
“Allying with the MNS is in a way cheating the north Indian community that had gone away from the Congress due to hatred and hooliganism and embraced the BJP….Keep in mind, leaders can stay silent under pressure but people are independent to take their own decision,” Singh said.
उत्तर भारतीय समाज जिस नफ़रत और गुंडागर्दी से परेशान होकर कांग्रेस से हटकर @BJP4Maharashtra @BJP4Mumbai को अपनाया और तन मन धन से समर्थन दिया वहीं भाजपा अब @mnsadhikrut @RajThackeray के साथ गठबंधन करने जा रही है जो एक तरह से हिंदी भाषियों के साथ धोखा है जिसका परिणाम भाजपा को ना 1/2 pic.twitter.com/JW7ctPdqyA
— R P Singh (@rampsingh2) March 20, 2024
MNS and Mumbai’s migrants
The MNS’s aggressive stance against Mumbai’s non-Marathi speaking population in its early years ensured the party some quick success in the Shiv Sena’s Marathi-dominated bastions. At one point in time, it even wrested the Shiv Sena bastions of Dadar and Mahim in the Mumbai civic polls and state assembly polls.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, it drew more than one lakh votes in all the 12 seats it had contested. More importantly, however, it played a significant role in damaging the Shiv Sena’s prospects in many seats.
In the assembly elections that year, the party got 13 MLAs while playing a spoiler for the Shiv Sena in several seats.
But after tasting initial success, the MNS floundered and has tried to change tack in the last few years.
In 2018, MNS chief Thakeray spoke at a conclave of north Indians organised by the Uttar Bharatiya Mahapanchayat. Addressing the gathering in Hindi, the MNS chief claimed he was not against north Indians and blamed politicians for halting the progress in Hindi-speaking states.
He also spoke about how Mumbai’s infrastructure was crumbling under the burden of the migrant influx, saying that the city was willing to welcome them but they needed to assimilate with its people by learning its language and traditions.
He also addressed similar gatherings of the Gujarati community in Borivali and Pune.
Of these events, Ajay Yadav of Yadav Seva Sangh, quoted earlier, said, “These are just events that don’t change the psyche of voters much. At least that generation of voters will never forget all this.”