Mumbai: Attempts are afoot to create a rift between the Marathi and non-Marathi speaking population of Mumbai, and any chances of an Uddhav-Raj Thackeray reunion on the ‘Marathi voters’ platform will have no impact on the upcoming civic polls, Ameet Satam, Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Mumbai unit president has said.
In an interview to ThePrint, Satam, who took over the reins of the BJP’s city unit last week, said the BJP’s campaign will highlight various major infrastructure upgrades that the “party has implemented” in Mumbai through the state government.
The party will specifically emphasise the various housing projects that the government has implemented to “help the Marathi population of Mumbai”.
“There are some people who are trying to create a rift in the city of Mumbai, a rift in the society on the basis of language, on the basis of community. They are doing so to regain the ground they have lost in the last so many years in the city of Mumbai. I think the Mumbaikar is a mature and thinking citizen and the Mumbaikar knows very well who has worked for the city in the last 11 years,” Satam told ThePrint.
On the possibility of the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) joining hands for the upcoming civic election in Mumbai, Satam said, “Every political party and every political leader is free to do whatever he or she thinks is correct for his or her party. So, I am nobody to comment on anybody else’s stand. We will focus on our agenda.”
He added, “It (Thackeray cousins coming together) has zero impact on the ground because the Marathi voter knows who has worked for him or her, and who has worked for the city.”
The BMC elections, which have been pending since 2022 when the term of the general body lapsed, are expected to be held early next year. BJP leaders, including Satam, have said on record that the party will contest the poll unitedly with its allies in the Mahayuti—the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
Meanwhile, for the first time since Raj Thackeray walked out of Bal Thackeray-led Shiv Sena in 2005, the Thackeray cousins have reached out to each other.
In July this year, Uddhav and Raj Thackeray addressed a joint rally to oppose the “imposition of Hindi” in Maharashtra when the state government had proposed to introduce Hindi as a compulsory third language in primary school education.
Since then the two parties have drawn closer, with both leaders having given indications that they are willing to consider a reunion for the sake of the city’s Marathi population.
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BJP to kickstart BMC campaign this month
Satam, a three-time MLA from Mumbai’s Andheri West constituency, said the BJP will launch its campaign for the civic polls this month.
The BJP’s Mumbai unit has planned a large gathering of its entire rank and file, which Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will address. At this event, Fadnavis will also inaugurate an online platform for all citizens to register their suggestions and inputs on what they expect the BMC, the country’s richest civic body, to do in the city.
“With the help of that platform, we are going to seek suggestions from Mumbaikars for the development of Mumbai. We will call upon the entire city. All BJP workers will come knocking at the doors of Mumbaikars, seeking their blessings, and also seeking their suggestions and their views as far as the development process of the city is concerned,” Satam, who used to work as a human resource professional in the private sector before becoming an active politician, said.
He added, “After analysing all the inputs that are provided to us by the Mumbaikars, we will come out with our manifesto. And after we have the Mahayuti mayor installed in the BMC, we will work towards the execution of that manifesto.”
The BMC was ruled by the undivided Shiv Sena for 25 years till 2022, with the BJP being a junior partner for the most part. In 2017, both parties contested the elections independently and the BJP ended up winning 82 of the 277 seats, just two short of the undivided Shiv Sena’s 84. In last year’s Assembly election too, the BJP, which swept the state, also emerged as the single-largest party in Mumbai, winning 15 seats, followed by the Sena (UBT) which won 10 seats in Mumbai, half of its total tally across Maharashtra.
Among the Mahayuti partners, the Shinde-led Shiv Sena clinched five while the Ajit Pawar-led NCP got one seat.
On whether the BJP needs its Mahayuti partners to install a mayor in Mumbai, Satam said, “We don’t need it. The city needs it. The Mumbaikar needs it. Because of the kind of development the city has seen in the last 11 years, the city and the Mumbaikar wishes and dreams of seeing the same kind of development through the BMC.”
While the BJP came to power in the state in 2014, the Mahayuti alliance has been in power since the Shiv Sena split in June 2022.
“We already have the state government contributing, and if the civic body also comes into the picture with a positive role, and a transparent administration, it can do wonders for the city,” Satam said, adding that the period from 1997 to 2022, was one of “non-transparent and visionless administration” in the BMC.
‘Mumbai’s Marathi population with BJP’
Of the 15 seats that the BJP won in the Assembly polls in Mumbai last year, only four were from the island city of Mumbai where several pockets are considered to be the Marathi heartlands.
Satam said, while the BJP has more or less equal distribution of elected representatives across the city, there is scope for improvement. Multiple housing projects that the state government is driving in pockets of the island city will help the party bridge that gap, he said.
“With the kind of work, especially the work of providing 500-square feet homes to those residing in the Worli Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) chawls and the Abhyudaya Nagar Redevelopment Project (near Parel), and also with the decision of providing homes under the PM Awas Yojana to all those slum dwellers who have been residing in the structures since before 2011… I think these housing projects are going to further our cause as far as the south Mumbai region is concerned,” Satam said.
As per slum redevelopment norms in Mumbai, the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) gives free housing in Mumbai only for structures that were built up to 2000.
Satam said, in its campaign, the BJP will emphasise how its governments at the Centre and state have driven showpiece infrastructure projects such as the Atal Setu, the coastal road and major Metro lines in Mumbai, highlighting how it is building a Metro network of over 300 kilometres in the city, with some lines operational and many others under construction.
“It is our vision that from any point to any point in the city you should be able to cover that distance in less than one hour’s time, and I think we are soon approaching the completion of that vision,” he said, adding that it just takes political will.
In a veiled taunt at the Shiv Sena (UBT), Satam said, there is a “concerted attempt to spoil the image of the Marathi manoos (person)” by pitting Marathi voters versus non-Marathi voters.
The issue of closing the city’s ‘kabootarkhanas’, which Mumbai’s Jain community is against, is being made out to be a rift between communities by opposition parties, when the issue is related to health and environment, Satam said.
He said, “The Marathi manoos is a very large-hearted person. Any person coming from any part of the country who has been staying in the city for a very long time who considers Marathi as his mother tongue is a Marathi for the Marathi manoos.”
“They (opposition parties) are just trying to divert these issues, but the Marathi manoos and the Mumbaikar is a very thinking, responsible and understanding kind of a person, and hence they will not digress from the core issues,” he added.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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