This time, the Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra will decide several things, and the election of 2024 is expected to go down as a watershed in the premier state.
With the polling concluding here on May 20, it will be decided as to who is 'asli' (real), and who is 'nakli' (fake\imposter), and who is the 'boss' of this state which has become a faceless entity in the Narendra Modi regime. The results will also cast a shadow over the Assembly polls scheduled for October/ November this year.
What an irony. Chief minister Eknath Shinde, claiming to be the head of the 'real' Shiv Sena, is seeking votes in the name of Narendra Modi in Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan and Nashik.
He has conveniently forgotten that the late Bal Thackeray had never sought votes in the name of the late Atal Behari Vajpayee or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Thackeray was hailed as the Hindu Hriday Samrat who was courted by the Prime Ministers and Chief Ministers.
The tussle has far-reaching implications. Modi is determined to ‘capture’ Maharashtra, especially Mumbai, once a stronghold of the Congress, Communists and Socialists. He is openly ridiculing Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena as the ‘fake’ one.
Modi’s open attack on Uddhav Thackeray, and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder Sharad Pawar, has made the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, state BJP President Chandrashekhar Bawankule and others mere side actors.
This has sharpened the battle between Modi and the Opposition's Maha Vikas Agadhi with Maharashtra being seen as a ‘swing’ state. Uddhav has predicted that “Modi will not remain the Prime Minister after June 4.”
The BJP is contesting only three seats of the total seven in Mumbai, leaving four to the Shinde’s Shiv Sena, thereby Modi-Shah are showing diffidence. The fight for India's financial capital is between the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav and the one led by Shinde.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray who has no role in this election, has gladly accepted the position of a cheerleader. He is campaigning for Modi, with the belief that the BJP will give a better deal to his MNS in the Assembly polls.
Another Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who is heading the NCP faction, has suddenly become invisible after the Baramati Lok Sabha election. He is not seen even in Modi's meetings and road shows in Maharashtra. As per reports in a section of the media, Ajit is unwell.
Maharashtra will go for polls on 13 Lok Sabha seats that include those in Mumbai as well as Thane, Kalyan, Palghar, Bhiwandi, all nearby Mumbai and Nashik, Dindori and Dhule.
In the election rallies, Eknath Shinde is praising Modi. However, his party and the BJP do not talk of 'Marathi Manoos' (son of the soil). They openly play the polarisation card to consolidate the majority vote.
Though Shinde's political relevance depends on electoral success, the BJP will never make him the ‘boss’ of Mumbai as it is Modi who has been keen to ‘capture’ the city.
Therefore, the battle in Mumbai is turning into locals versus outsiders with Uddhav's Shiv Sena openly questioning the dominance of Gujaratis in the megapolis. And it will get louder in the coming months irrespective of the outcome of Lok Sabha polls. This is because of the impending Assembly and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections.
Meanwhile, a massive public meeting of several thousand people was held recently by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA-I.N.D.I.A.) for the NCP candidate Suresh Mhatre in the Bhiwandi Lok Sabha seat. He is taking on the BJP's Union Minister Kapil Patil.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist has a reasonably good presence in the Shahapur, Wada, Bhiwandi and Murbad tehsils of this constituency. So hundreds of activists of the CPI-M had come for the public meeting waving their party flags.
The public meeting was addressed by NCP President Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, CPI-M Polit Bureau Member Dr Ashok Dhawale, NCP State President Jayant Patil, MLAs Jitendra Avhad and Rohit Pawar, candidate Suresh Mhatre, and local leaders. All the speakers attacked Modi-Shah led BJP’s Central government which they said “has exhibited its bankruptcy on all fronts in the last ten years”.
While putting the Modi government in the dock for its “anti people policies” and exposing the BJP for splitting the opposition parties in Maharashtra, the speakers appealed to the people to vote for the Maha Vikas Aghadi in this election.
Cover Photograph PTI