On Vidarbha tour, Raj Thackeray hints at MNS ‘going solo’ for civic polls 

He tells party workers to to start an intensive campaigning for the civic poll

Exhorting his party cadre to begin strengthening the organisation at the ground level, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, who began his tour of the Vidarbha region on Sunday hinted that a fight against the “dominant political parties” of the region was essential if the MNS had to gain a toehold in Vidarbha.

Mr. Thackeray, who is on a five-day tour of the region, reached Nagpur on Sunday where he held closed-door meetings with MNS office bearers ahead of the crucial civic polls.

According to sources, the MNS chief, who has been making efforts to revive his party’s sagging fortunes in Maharashtra, is believed to have questioned his party workers as to why were they lagging in building the MNS in this belt which has long been dominated chiefly by the Congress and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

After listening to the problems encountered by the MNS workers in building the party’s organisation in Nagpur and other districts in the Vidarbha belt, Mr. Thackeray – the estranged cousin of Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray – has directed his cadre to start an intensive campaigning for the civic polls.

“Go to the voters thinking that the Nagpur Municipal elections have been announced. Get to work, we want to contest every seat,” Mr. Thackeray told his party workers. The BJP currently dominates the 151-seat Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) where the MNS has virtually no presence.

In its 15-year-old existence, the MNS has never exerted much influence beyond fixed pockets in Mumbai city, Pune and Nashik. The MNS had notched up impressive performances in the 2012 polls to the Pune and Nashik civic bodies at a time when Mr. Thackeray was still considered a potent force in Maharashtra politics. 

Given his present bonhomie with the BJP, Mr. Thackeray’s intent on contesting against “established parties” poses a question mark on whether the MNS chief will go it alone in the upcoming civic polls or tacitly ally with the saffron party.