In an interesting twist to the controversy over the Bharatiya Janata Party’s recent flirtations with his party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Tuesday night declared his party’s support to senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde in Beed lok Sabha constituency, ahead of Thursday’s polls.
Following up on a statement issued to that effect by his party earlier in the evening, Raj said at an election rally at Jogeshwari here: “Munde had called me this morning to seek the MNS’ support to his candidature in Beed and I agreed to extend my party’s support to him”.
While campaigning for film maker and his party’s candidate from Mumbai north-west constituency, Raj elaborated on his party’s support to Munde in Beed: “Four days ago Munde had publicly announced that he would not seek the MNS’ support. But, this morning, he telephoned me and said that there were a lot of MNS supporters and followers in Beed and asked me to extend my party’s support to him. I have shown large-heartedness and declared my party’s support to him. But, I don’t really know what happened in four days that made him to change his mind and seek my support.”
At a news conference held in Pune on Friday last, Munde had categorically stated that the BJP would not need MNS’ support at the Centre. “The NDA will come to power on its own strength. We will not need the support of the MNS and we will not take it”.
Munde is seeking re-election from Beed. Apart from his own estranged nephew Dhananjay who is now with the Sharad Pawar-led party, the NCP has made it a prestige issue to defeat Munde in Beed. In a keenly fought election in Beed, Munde pitted against NCP’s Suresh Dhas and Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate and Marathi actor Nandu Madhav.
At the Jogeshwari election rally, Raj reiterated that the elected MNS MPs would support the NDA at the Centre from outside. “We are contesting the lok Sabha polls to reach the grievances of Maharashtra ton Delhi,” he said.
Responding to a recent statement by BJP’s national president Rajnath Singh, the MNS chief said: “My party has not extended its support to Rajnath Singh. We have extended our support to the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. Since Modi is not speaking on the issue, I request Rajnath Singh not to say anything on our party’s outside support to the NDA”.
Tuesday’s development is an off-shoot of the developments that had followed senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari’s luncheon meeting with him in Mumbai on March 3. During the meeting, Gadkari had reportedly requested the MNS chief not to put up candidates against the BJP-led “Maha-Yuti” (grand alliance), to avoid division of the Opposition votes in the lok Sabha polls.
Raj’s declaration of support to the BJP’s Prime Minister had upset the Shiv Sena to such an extent that its president had hit out at the party’s oldest saffron ally. Following Uddhav’s criticism of the BJP, the party’s president Rajnath Singh and Modi himself had telephoned the Sena president and sought to remove the latter’s “misgivings” vis-à-vis the MNS-BJP link.
later in an interview published in the Shiv Sena’s official mouth-piece Saamana, Uddhav Thackeray had said that Raj was main cause of strained relations between the Sena and BJP in the recent past. He had ripped Raj apart, by dubbing the MNS chief as “modern day Aurangzeb” and exhorting the voters not to fall prey for the latter’s enticements.