Maharashtra will hold massive civic polls, including for the BMC, on Thursday. The election is a high-stakes battle for the Thackeray brothers, Uddhav and Raj, against the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena (Mahayuti) alliance, testing their political legacy.
High-Stakes Civic Polls in Maharashtra
Maharashtra is set for massive civic polls across 29 municipal corporations, including the prestigious Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), with stakes high for the Thackeray brothers as also BJP-Shiv Sena after the ruling Mahayuti alliance’s stupendous victory in the assembly polls last year.
The voting for these corporations will be held on Thursday and the votes will be counted on Friday. In the capital city, Mumbai, voting will take place in 227 wards, with approximately 1,700 candidates in the fray. A total of 1,03,44,315 citizens are eligible to vote in the BMC polls. Of these, 55,16,707 are male voters, 48,26,509 are female voters, and the number of other voters is 1,099.
The undivided Shiv Sena was a strong force in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. It won 84 seats contesting in alliance with the BJP, which won 82 seats. However, the tables have turned this time following Shiv Sena’s split in 2022.
Thackeray Legacy and ‘Marathi Manus’ Pitch
For the Thackeray brothers, Raj and Uddhav, these local body polls are a fight for regaining lost prestige. It will also test if the Thackeray surname still carries as much weight as it once did in the city and the state. In its first electoral outing, Raj Thackeray’s MNS had won 19 seats in the 2009 BMC elections. However, since then the MNS has not had much to show in the state assembly polls. The Shiv Sena (UBT) headed by Uddhav Thackeray, was badly damaged by the split prior to the Assembly polls and clocked just 20 wins in the 288-member house in the assembly polls held last year. The coming together of the two cousins is seen as the final throw of the dice of the Thackeray legacy.
The Thackeray scions have pitched this battle as one of the ‘Marathi Manus’ against the alleged corporate nexus of the BJP-Sena combine.
“During the assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party engaged in negative campaigning. With the slogan ‘If we divide, we will be cut,’ an attempt was made to sow discord among the Marathi people. Now, if a mistake has been made, its consequences will be serious. If division happens again, we will be finished. Therefore, the Marathi people should not break, should not divide,” said Uddhav Thackeray on the day the two cousins came together.
Raj followed suit with a more stringent pitch, telling his constituents that this was the last election for the Marathi manoos. “This is the last election for the Marathi man… If you miss this opportunity today, you will be finished. Unite for Marathi and Maharashtra. Mumbai was obtained through the sacrifices of so many people… What will we tell them?… The BLA (Booth Level Agents) appointed at 6 AM should be ready on election day… Be alert, be vigilant, don’t be careless… If anyone comes to vote again, throw them out,” said Raj at a campaign rally
Uddhav then made a direct attack on the BJP asking voters to bury the ‘curse of division’ and also sought to evoke Balasaheb Thackeray’s legacy. “All this Adani-isation is going on… Isn’t this their ploy to turn Mumbai back into Bombay?… Ask the people what the Shiv Sena did in 25 years and how they have ruined Mumbai in three years… Mumbai was acquired with bloodshed. It is our duty to fight alongside soldiers like you to push back this attack… Balasaheb Thackeray taught us that if someone lays a hand on you, tear off their hand. Bury the curse of division today,” said Uddhav Thackeray.
Mahayuti’s Development-Focused Campaign
The Bharatiya Janata Party is contesting the BMC elections in alliance with Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena. With a coordinated campaign and the BJP’s mammoth election backroom machinery behind the Mahayuti the election is also being perceived as a vote for Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ mega development pitch. The city of Mumbai has seen big projects take off under the Yuti with the new Mumbai Metro line and the Coastal Road being the centrepieces of this development pitch.
Fadnavis says that the Yuti campaign has remained firmly centred on development, despite attempts by the opposition to shift the narrative. “We didn’t just hold rallies; we also did talk shows and roadshows. In every city, we consistently talked about development. Our opponents tried very hard to divert the election from the development agenda, especially in Mumbai, but we did not get sidetracked,” he said, adding that “80-90 per cent of our campaign was focused solely on development.”
Countering the ‘Marathi Manoos’ Narrative
The Maharashtra CM is also not shying of taking on the Thackeray cousins on the issue of the betterment of the Marathi manoos. Speaking about the alleged attempts to polarise voters on linguistic lines, the Chief Minister said, “Marathi is my language. There must be development for the Marathi language.” However, he questioned the opposition’s definition of “development for the Marathi man,” asking whether it meant pushing Marathi-speaking people out of Mumbai or resorting to violence against workers.
“We brought the Marathi man back to Mumbai by creating jobs through infrastructure projects and built homes for the people,” he said, adding that voters are aware of these efforts.
His ally and deputy Eknath Shinde echoed Fadnavis, asserting that Marathi pride has never been endangered and expressing confidence that the Mahayuti alliance will come to power in the civic body polls. “Some people made emotional speeches in this election that this is the last election for saving the existence of ‘Marathi Manoos’. I want to tell everyone that Marathi people’s existence was never in threat and will never be in threat in Mumbai. Mahayuti will come to power in BMC and this is a saffron line drawn on a black stone,” he said.
Complex Alliance Dynamics
In Mumbai, the NCP and the Congress are also in the fray, although they may not make too much of an impact and the real fight is said to be between Yuti and the Thackeray brothers. NCP(SP) has joined hands with the Thackerays. Strangely, the NCP led by Ajit Pawar has also shaken hands with the NCP led by his uncle Sharad Pawar and are contesting local body polls in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad together. A favourable result will undoubtedly put stress on the State Alliance with the BJP-Shiv Sena.
Fadnavis has already accused Ajit Pawar of not upholding a commitment about not resorting to “personal attacks”. “I am someone who stands by the word I give. That is why, when it was decided that in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, we would not contest elections in alliance with the NCP. We also said that this would be a friendly contest and that we would not make any personal attacks on each other. We upheld that commitment till the very end, but Ajit Pawar did not. Why he did that, I do not know,” Fadnavis had said.
Other Key Civic Body Polls
Apart from Mumbai, the prominent civic bodies going to polls on Thursday include Thane, Navi Mumbai, Ulhasnagar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Mira-Bhayandar, Vasai-Virar, Panvel, Nashik, Malegaon, Ahilyanagar, Jalgaon, Dhule, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Solapur, Kolhapur, Ichalkaranji, Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Nanded-Waghala, Parbhani, Jalna, Latur, Amravati, Akola, Nagpur, and Chandrapur.
For a state that now has an alphabet soup of political parties in the ring, these elections would have an impact on the future of alliances. Will the Thackerays split from the Aghadi partners like the Congress and will the BJP-Sena-Ajit Pawar be glued together once the results of the civic bodies come out. The answers will be locked in the ballot box on Thursday. (ANI)
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)