Seeking cut into the traditional Shiv Sena vote bank, the Raj Thackeray-led MNS on Saturday nominated an erstwhile Sena student leader as its candidate from Thane lok Sabha constituency.
Abhiji Panse, who headed the Sena’s student wing, Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena (BVS) before he joined the Raj Thackeray-led party on the occasion of its eighth foundation day on March 9, is the seventh MNS candidate fielded against the Sena for the lok Sabha polls.
Panse had played a key role in launching the Yuva Sena headed by Uddhav Thackeray’s son Aaditya. He was removed as the president of the BVS a year ago. In a triangular contest to be witnessed in Thane, Panse is taking on Sena’s Rajan Vichare and NCP’s sitting MP Sanjeev Naik.
Panse’s name figured in the second list of two MNS candidates released by Raj on Saturday. Apart from Panse, the MNS named Suresh Mhatre as its candidate in the communally sensitive lS constituency of Bhiwandi where the BJP is contesting the seat. The Congress has nominated Vishwanath Patil as its candidate, while BJP is yet to name a candidate.
The seven MNS’ nominees who had figured in the first list of MNS candidates released on March 9 were sitting MlA and Raj’s close aide Bala Nandgaonkar (Mumbai South seat), Aditya Shirodkar (Mumbai South Central), actor-director Mahesh Manjrekar (Mumbai North-West), Raju Patil (Kalyan-Dombivli), Ashok Khandebharad (Shirur), Dr Pradeep Pawar (Nashik) — all of whom will be taking on the Sena nominees in the polls — and Deepak Paigude as a BJP candidate in Pune.
The MNS’ release of the second list of two candidates comes in the backdrop of Raj’s announcement that his party would support the BJP-led NDA’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in the post-poll scenario, even while putting up candidates against both the Sena and BJP candidates.
The MNS chief’s announcement had come after 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.