Uddhav-Raj alliance won’t matter: Devendra Fadnavis

 

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said the alliance between cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray won’t make a difference in the municipal corporation elections in Mumbai, adding that the latter will emerge as the biggest loser.

Fadnavis also said that the mayor in as many as 27 of the 29 municipal corporations in the State, where elections will be held on January 15, will be from the ruling Mahayuti alliance, led by the BJP.

In the high-stakes Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections in the city, it will be a battle for “change and development”, Fadnavis said, in an interaction with select media at his official residence, Varsha, in south Mumbai. The campaign for the elections ended on Tuesday. Fadnavis participated in 37 campaign rallies and road shows in the last fortnight. Ending a 20-year political feud, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and MNS president Raj Thackeray forged an alliance last month ahead of elections to the cash-rich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

“This election is for change and development. The tone has been set in Mumbai. The alliance of Shiv Sena-UBT and MNS will make no difference,” Fadnavis said. Raj Thackeray will be the biggest loser in the alliance, while Uddhav Thackeray will benefit from the coming together of the two parties, the CM said. The Thackeray cousins did not speak on development issues during their poll campaign, Fadnavis said. “They didn’t campaign and also didn’t put their prestige at stake. For namesake, there were some rallies outside Mumbai,” he said.

Asked if he felt the election was one-sided, Fadnavis said, “No election is one-sided. There are challenges. However, the Opposition wasn’t up to the mark,” he said.

“In Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, where the BJP and NCP, (led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar) are contesting separately, the BJP will have a comfortable majority. In Mumbai, we will have a good majority. We will do well in Nashik as well,” he said. The chief minister said people in Mumbai feel that the Mahayuti can be trusted with development going by what has been delivered so far. Marathi-speaking voters do not vote en bloc for Shiv Sena-UBT, Fadnavis said.

“In the 2014, 2019 and 2024 elections, we contested separately and got more seats than them in Mumbai. This cannot happen without Marathi voters. Our vote share is constant. We have to tap the ‘floating’ voters,” he said. Fadnavis said the focus will be on improving Mumbai’s civic administration, which has been “derailed” for the last 25 years. “We will provide a transparent civic administration to implement our vision for the city,” he said.  Asked if the BJP, after coming to power in the BMC, will investigate the civic body’s governance during the Shiv Sena-UBT regime, Fadnavis said there will be no vindictive politics. On how the civic poll results will shape the political dynamics in the state, Fadnavis said the BJP has emerged as the numero uno party in Maharashtra and will continue to remain the centre of the State politics. “Thackeray” is not a brand, Fadnavis said, responding to a query.

“Late Balasaheb Thackeray was a brand,” he said. “For us, PM Narendra Modi is a brand at the national level,” he said. “Naam hi kafi hai (mere name is enough), Fadnavis said, when asked why Modi did not come to the state during the election campaign.

Asked about the future of Thackeray cousins, Fadnavis said, “They will have to decide their own future. No leader or party is finished after electoral defeats. But if you don’t try to bounce back, you will not succeed.”

When asked if keeping Ajit Pawar out of the Mahayuti in the civic polls was a strategy, Fadnavis said, “As both (BJP and NCP) are the main parties in these cities, it wasn’t possible to contest together.”

Fadnavis said the BJP will not require NCP’s support in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad and Mumbai to gain control in the municipal corporations there. “The BJP will be the single largest party everywhere but we will take a call on the mayoral post after discussion to install a Mahayuti mayor,” he said.

To a query on the need to bring religious identity politics in the campaign discourse, Fadnavis said, “I spoke about the mayor being a Hindu, Marathi and from Mahayuti to expose the Sena-UBT, which didn’t react to statements about a hijab wearing mayor.”

On both NCP and NCP (SP) coming together in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad elections, Fadnavis said, “I see this as a local phenomenon. I don’t think the two parties will come together. Let them take a call and then we will take a stand.” Asked about local BJP units tying up with the Congress at Ambernath in Thane and the AIMIM at Akot in Akola districts to gain majority control in the two local bodies following the municipal elections last month, Fadnavis said the NCP joined hands with AIMIM in Akot.

“Since our senior MLA there didn’t pay attention, he has been served a show cause notice. In Ambernath, four of the 12 Congress councillors were our people. They went to Congress because they didn’t get a ticket from the BJP. When they were in talks with us, Congress sacked them, so they joined the BJP,” Fadnavis said.