Mumbai, July 27: After his revolt in the Shiv Sena on the ground that his God (Bal Thackeray) was surrounded by a coterie of priests, Raj Thackeray formed his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), breaking the monopoly of the Sena over issues like jobs for locals and preserving Marathi.
But he was compelled to taste his own medicine with his close lieutenants Shweta Parulkar and Prakash Mahajan who quit the MNS to join the Sena citing the same reason that Raj gave when he quit his uncle’s outfit.
After sticks and stones, olive branch
Following a bitter bout of mudslinging between them, state Industries Minister Narayan Rane and Union Minister for Heavy Industries Vilasrao Deshmukh appear to be burying the hatchet. After about a year, the two leaders met at the latter’s office in Delhi on Thursday and chatted for over an hour. The Congress is preparing to face Assembly elections in the state within a couple of months and has asked the foes to turn friends. Rane who was chief minister during the Shiv Sena-BJP regime in 1999 — joined the Congress in 2005 and won over Sena MLAs to increase the Congress tally in the Assembly from 69 to 75. He wanted to oust Deshmukh and become chief minister again and had launched a concerted campaign for a change of guard.
For mass appeal, it’s Munde over Modi
The BJP, chastened after the Lok Sabha election results, is working to put its house in order in the state. It has replaced Narendra Modi, who had led the poll campaign, with Gopinath Munde, thereby recognising the pan-Maharashtra appeal of the OBC leader. The state unit of the BJP has seen warring groups fighting for power, resulting in Munde resigning in protest. Though his detractors like state chief Nitin Gadkari are still firmly in the saddle, the party is hoping to use Munde to focus on the masses for numbers required for the ensuing assembly polls.
NCP and Congress: Friends and foes
Despite being the ruling alliance partners in the state, the Congress and NCP are separately trying to build up their individual strengths for the Assembly elections. The Congress is indirectly bullying the NCP, which is on the backfoot after its lacklustre performance in the Lok Sabha polls, by offering tickets to seven Independents who had defeated NCP candidates in 2004. The idea is to increase the Congress share of seats in the proposed pre-poll alliance. The NCP, which had projected Sharad Pawar as the prime ministerial candidate a few months ago, has asked its cadres to lie low and not to expect too much in the seat-sharing exercise.
-Agencies