Total rout of Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is one of the most interesting outcomes of this round of municipal elections in Maharashtra. The party has been restricted to single digits in Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Thane municipal corporations.
In 2012, the MNS had won 28 seats in Mumbai. This time they have won mere seven. In Pune, they were 26 in 2012, while this time around they are down to six. Raj's party has not been able to open its account so far in Thane. The biggest blow to the MNS came in Nashik where the party ruled for five years. It has been reduced to three in this municipal corporation.
Why has this happened? Does this mean that Raj Thackeray's charisma is over? The answer to the first question can be found in MNS's inability to rise beyond its 'sons of the soil' call, and also in the inability of its leadership to provide well rounded vision and direction to party cadre which in turn helps the cadre to widen the base of the party further.
The first signs that Raj Thackeray's charisma may be over were apparent in 2014 assembly elections, when MNS won just one seat. It had won more than 10 in 2009 assembly polls.
That MNS' desperation was even more clear when its leader Bala Nandgaonkar rushed to Matoshree to discuss possibility of a Sena-MNS alliance in Mumbai soon after Uddhav Thackeray announced that he had broken ties with the BJP. Uddhav, in a way, was right in rejecting the offer as Raj had criticised Sena leadership in a very humiliating language on a number of occasions when his star appeared to be on the rise.
Sena wanted nothing other than MNS's merger into it. Uddhav's party still insists on that demand. But the ground reality has changed a little. The difference between Shiv Sena and the BJP in the BMC is as low as four seats (Sena at 84 and BJP at 80 at the time of filing this report). BJP has announced that it has the support from 4 independents taking its tally to exactly the same number as Shiv Sena's.
Given this background, MNS's seven corporators will come handy to Shiv Sena. Bala Nandgaonkar, before BMC polls, had said that MNS could play a sort of kingmaker's role in BMC. His words appear to be coming true as both the BJP and the Sena will be wooing MNS flock actively. Whichever way they go, or even if they stay neutral, Raj Thackeray's claim that he is the true inheritor of Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray's legacy, will have gone for a toss.
