Mumbai: The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which has faced near decimation in the state since 2014, has now trained its focus on the state’s Konkan region, traditionally a stronghold of the undivided Shiv Sena and a geography where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also been trying to aggressively grow.
The party Wednesday launched an agitation to flag the inordinate delays in the widening of the Mumbai-Goa highway, which will boost connectivity to the Konkan region from Mumbai. Work on the highway has been going on since 2010.
In a speech at a party event in Panvel in the Raigad district, Thackeray Wednesday also played the Marathi card, saying outsiders buy land in the region from the original Konkanis at a pittance whenever any development project is planned there.
“I am telling all my MNS sainiks (soldiers), you will keep an eye on the entire Konkan and be vigilant. Who is buying these lands? Otherwise, Konkan will be like the rest of the state where people mainly speak Hindi,” Thackeray said.
“It will become dirty. Industries should come to Konkan, but the beauty of the region should be preserved,” he added.
As a party, Thackeray told MNS workers, “you will all have to hit the road from Panvel to Sawantwadi telling people about all these issues”. “We don’t want to bother anyone, but the agitation should be such that the government should be compelled to take steps to resolve issues and people should get a good quality road from Mumbai to Goa soon,” he added.
The Konkan region comprises Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Raigad, Thane and Palghar, other than the two districts of Mumbai — Mumbai city and Mumbai suburban. But, while the two Mumbai districts, Thane and some parts of Raigad and Palghar are very urban, the rest of Konkan, especially Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg, grapples with issues of connectivity, bad roads and lack of adequate industrial employment opportunities.
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The Mumbai-Goa highway and the MNS’ Konkan pitch
The widening and expansion of the 471-km Mumbai-Goa national highway to four lanes has been underway since 2010 and is now expected to be completed by December 2023, with the road likely to be opened for traffic in January 2024, according to a statement issued by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in March this year.
Work on the road has been severely delayed due to hindrances in getting forest clearances, time consumed in land acquisition, and issues with the contractors.
The MNS chief Wednesday claimed that Rs 15,566 crore had already been spent on the project, and that over 2,500 people had lost their lives due to the poor state of the existing road.
“If we have to go to the Ratnagiri district, we need to make a U-turn and go to Pune from Mumbai then go to Satara and then from there go to Ratnagiri. The road was better when it was not under construction,” Raj Thackeray said.
Over the last one year, BJP and MNS leaders held several courtesy meetings as the two parties were warming up to exploring a formal or informal understanding for all upcoming polls. However, since the split in the NCP and the inclusion of the Ajit Pawar-led faction in the government, the MNS and the BJP have been sparring.
MNS leaders say Raj Thackeray is focusing on charting out his party’s own independent path.
In that context, the Konkan districts, with their road problems and inadequate jobs, are a conducive political battleground, located adjacent to the MNS’ home ground of Mumbai, with a predominantly Marathi population, MNS leaders told ThePrint.
“I want to tell the people of Konkan. If they really want development, there is no alternative other than the MNS… those who were coming to you until now, tell them we have closed our doors to you. Otherwise they will once again come up with Balasaheb’s name,” senior MNS leader Bala Nandgaonkar said, addressing the Panvel gathering.
“But now don’t forget Rajsaheb Thackeray is in the field,” he added.
The politics of Konkan
The Konkan region has been a bastion of the undivided Shiv Sena since the party’s early days. Marathi youth from Konkan, especially the scenic coastal districts of Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg, would come to Mumbai in search of jobs. They would remit money back home, which led to the region being informally known as the ‘money order economy’.
Back then, the Shiv Sena’s pitch was that migrants from outside Maharashtra were grabbing all high-profile work opportunities in Mumbai, and that this was an injustice to the ‘Marathi manoos’.
The young job-seekers from Konkan and their families back home identified with this ideology, cultivating Konkan as one of the Shiv Sena’s bastions.
The Ratnagiri, Raigad, and Sindhudurg districts have 15 assembly seats. Of these, six MLAs are with the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, three are with the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), two are NCP MLAs who last month joined Deputy CM Ajit Pawar in his rebellion against the party, three are with the BJP, while one is an Independent.
Ever since its alliance with the undivided Shiv Sena splintered in 2019, the BJP has been aggressively trying to make inroads in the three districts.
Referring to the long-delayed Mumbai-Goa highway in his speech Wednesday, MNS’ Thackeray said, “It takes more than 15-17 years to build a road. Samruddhi Mahamarg happens in four years, then what are our MPs and MLAs from Konkan doing? Who is talking to the CM, [Deputy CM] Devendra Fadnavis, [Union highways minister] Nitin Gadkari? Shiv Sena has so many MLAs here, what are they doing?”
The 701-km Samruddhi corridor is an expressway from Mumbai to Nagpur, work on which had started in January 2019. The corridor has been partially opened till Shirdi.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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