Uddhav Thackeray, Member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council, addresses a press conference in New Delhi on August 07, 2024.
| Photo Credit: SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
While Shiv Sena (UBT) senior leader Sanjay Raut reasoned out the need to have a Chief Ministerial face to the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, the partners aren’t committal. This has provided an opportunity for the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena to take a dig at former Chief Minister and Shiv Sena (UBT) Chief Uddhav Thackeray.
Mr. Thackeray along with his wife Rashmi and son Aaditya made a three-day visit to New Delhi starting August 6 and met senior political allies from Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (SP). The visit was intended to convince the partners to nominate himself as the Chief Ministerial face for the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra. Mr. Thackeray returned to Mumbai late Thursday night.
Emphasising the need to have a face to the campaign, Mr. Raut said that had Congress Member of Parliament and Leader of Opposition in the Parliament Rahul Gandhi been the face of the INDIA bloc during the Lok Sabha election held earlier this year, the Opposition alliance could have defeated the incumbent National Democratic Alliance.
“It was only after Mr. Gandhi became Leader of Opposition, people got some sense of confidence. Therefore, there is a requirement of having a face during the polls,” Mr. Raut shared.
However, one of the senior Congress leaders from Maharashtra told The Hindu that it has been the tradition of the Opposition not to have any individual as a CM face. All the three MVA constituents are in the process of putting together their respective manifesto. A common manifesto is likely to be presented to the public raising multiple issues such as inflation, unemployment, corruption, etc. These issues were also raised in the manifesto during the Lok Sabha elections.
Congress leader and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Friday commented that the Chief Minister candidate will be announced post election results, depending upon which of the three allies secure how many seats during the Assembly polls.
With MVA allies non-committal, BJP has taken it as an opportunity highlighting how Mr. Thackeray failed to get his ambition fulfilled to be re-appointed as Maharashtra’s Chief Minister.
“He was in Delhi for his political self-interest and not for the interest for Maharashtra and the citizens…Forget about getting anything for Maharashtra, he failed to secure anything even for himself as he could not get an assurance on his candidacy…his self confidence has got dented after his Delhi visit,” BJP Spokesperson Keshav Upadhye said on Friday.
In New Delhi, while interacting with reporters, Shiv Sena MP Dr. Shrikant Shinde and son of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde did not let the opportunity go by to react on his former party leader. “During the days of Balasaheb Thackeray, political leaders from Delhi would come to (Thackeray’s family home) Mathoshree for meetings. Now, this entire family has to camp in Delhi. They are in such a helpless situation due to them abandoning Hindutva ideology.”
BJP leader Raosaheb Danve on Thursday had mocked Mr. Thackeray stating that earlier he used to ridicule senior leaders from Maharashtra whenever they used to visit New Delhi, but such a situation has arisen that Mr. Thackeray himself has to head to the national capital to seek support for his candidacy for the State’s top post.
