Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Arshi Qureshi
After the fall of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government - the Eknath Shinde faction and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are harbouring second thoughts to ally with Raj Thackeray led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections.
After the fall of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government - the Eknath Shinde faction and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are harbouring second thoughts to ally with Raj Thackeray led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections.
According to the New Indian Express - Raj Thackeray met Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Mumbai BJP president Ashish Shelar, and Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekar Bawankule.
BJP is open to pre-poll coalition with the MNS because they think Raj Thackeray's party, combined with the Shinde faction, can erode the Marathi support base of the Sena.
MNS has been vocal about its “Hindutva” politics - Raj Thackeray and his party has maintained their stand against loudspeakers in the mosques - even though Shiv Sena said that all mosques in the state have taken permission for the use of loudspeakers.
In 2017, the BJP and Shiv Sena fought a fierce battle, with the latter retaining the BMC by fewer seats.
Currently, the Shiv Sena holds 97 of the 227 seats, followed by the BJP with 83, the Congress with 29, the NCP with 9, the Samajwadi Party with six, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) with two, and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena with one.
In 2012 - BJP won 31 seats, Shiv Sena held 75, Congress 52, NCP 13, MNS 28 and others 28.
Source: Maharashtra State Election Commission
On paper Shiv Sena is the largest party - as per vote share, the difference between the two parties is around 0.5 percent of the total number of registered voters in the city.
BJP improved tremendously if you look at 2012 BMC results in terms of seats and vote share. Sena's vote share increased from 17.34% to 28.29% and BJP’s saw a rise from 6.78% to 27.29%.
According to the Firstpost - Congress and NCP performed marginally worse than they did in 2012, with Congress' vote share fell from 16.28% to 15.93% and NCP's from 5.5% to 4.75%.
The MNS, on the other hand, surprised everyone by losing more than half of its vote share, falling from 15.89% to 7.73%.
BJP’s victory in the upcoming BMC elections is highly crucial, because win for Uddhav Thackeray led Sena and MVA will give them a stronghold in the state once again.
Even though stakes for MVA are pretty weak after the fall of the government by Shinde camp. The political future of Uddhav and Aaditya Thackeray is in jeopardy since losing BMC would result in both a loss of face for the Thackerays and a loss of the "resources" provided by BMC's enormous finances to contest future elections.
