Why Raj Thackeray's MNS needs a new strategy for political survival

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), set up by Raj Thackeray after walking out of the Shiv Sena, stands at the crossroads. A decade after a tumultuous start to his own political party, the MNS is not in a very comfortable position as its graph is dwindling year after year since it failed to catch the imagination of the Marathi-speaking population.

A charismatic leader who could draw huge crowds comparable with his uncle Balasaheb Thackeray, Raj is wondering what has gone wrong despite initial support to his experiment of setting up a new political platform. Raj, an accomplished orator who adopted the mannerisms of senior Thackeray, failed to convert the enthusiastic initial support into votes as he lacked political mechanism and underestimated his mild-mannered cousin brother Uddhav who took the mantle of the Shiv Sena after the demise of his father. It was a big blow to the Shiv Sena, much deadlier than the one it had received when stalwarts like Chhagan Bhujbal and Narayan Rane had deserted the party. Unlike others, Raj had not only left the party but set up a new party based on the same ideological platform of fight for “sons of the soil” which provided basic core support base to the Shiv Sena.

He adopted more aggressive posturing and competitive bidding to seize initiatives from the Sena. Initially, he took care not to attack Balasaheb who was being treated like a deity by his loyal Sainiks. The rank and file was confused initially as they had to decide between the two fighting brothers who were pitted against each other and both claiming political legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray. With all efforts by Balasaheb to persuade Raj to return to the Sena fold having failed, he disowned him and made an emotional appeal to his followers to prefer his son than his nephew in the long drawn battle of political supremacy. Raj had committed a cardinal mistake in leaving the Sena while Balasaheb was alive and failed to wean away committed Shiv Sainiks to his new political set-up.

Despite his initial limited success at the battle of ballots, his new set-up failed to consolidate and build up an organisational structure due to flip flop of his political policies and programmes. Initially youngsters followed him in large numbers while seniors remained with the original party with wait-and-watch policy.

Raj could galvanise the upwardly mobile middle class with his slogans for jobs for local people but he repeated similar tactics used by senior Thackeray when Sena was launched in the late 1960s. However, the younger generation was more interested in better economic opportunities and got disillusioned in the absence of any concrete, result-oriented programme. This younger generation, who grew up in a changed environment due to liberalised economic policies at the national level, was interested in more advanced economic opportunities rather than remain satisfied with petty jobs or with programmes like setting up of small outlets of selling “vada pav” which had become synonymous with the Sena in earlier days.

Regional media hailed him as a game-changer in Maharashtra politics; even his political opponents, including the Congress and the Sharad Pawar led Nationalist Congress Party, watched his moves closely. The Shiv Sena’s political ally of two decades, the Bharatiya Janata Party, also kept a distance from the bitter fight between the two cousin brothers, waiting to see who emerges victor. A section of the BJP wanted the party to support Raj by discarding Sena after Balasaheb, but seniors, who were against taking any hasty decision, prevailed over them.

Raj had begun well with his detailed documentation of “vision for modern Maharashtra” but failed to follow it up with political programmes. His more aggressive campaign against jobs for outsiders created a lot of heat and dust and street violence which kept the intelligentsia away from MNS. While he concentrated on urban issues, he failed to create a support base in rural Maharashtra.

He had realised that the BJP is its natural ally but as long as the Shiv Sena was BJP’s political partner in the state, he had very little chance. He had become cosy with Narendra Modi who was then Gujarat chief minister and on his way to become a national leader. Raj had also visited Gujarat. However, his decision to stay away from the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 proved to be a disaster as many MNS supporters returned to the Sena fold in the absence of any political work during the fiercely fought Lok Sabha elections. The MNS missed an opportunity to test the ground reality and build up party base in the state for the assembly elections.

The assembly results saw MNS’s dismal performance as it could hardly win one seat in the 288-member house with vote percentage of 3.7 while the Shiv Sena recorded its best ever performance by winning 65 seats with 19.9 vote percentage. Three year-old MNS had won 13 seats in its first try in state legislative assembly elections in 2009 but failed to consolidate on its success.

There are several challenges and fewer opportunities before the MNS as it completes 10 years. In his speech on the occasion, Raj showed realisation of difficult days ahead with a resolve to fight to create its own space in state politics. The party will have to take a fresh look at the situation and draw a new policy based on its own perceptions without getting obsessed with the Shiv Sena. The main drawback with the MNS is lack of organisational set-up and overdependence on the charisma of its leader. There is no political programme to keep the party cadres engaged on a long-term basis.

The speech delivered by Raj to mark the party’s foundation day did not reveal the party’s strategy for survival. However, his call to his cadres to burn new auto-rickshaws since most of the new licenses are given to people from North India sounds jarring. It is difficult to see how this once failed strategy is going to help the party to expand its base. Flip-flops of the MNS over the issue of toll booths in the state is still fresh in people’s memory. The MNS is targeting migrants, mostly north Indians, to whip up sentiments among youths by hitting out at the BJP-Shiv Sena government for ignoring local youths.

The coming elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) next year are more crucial for MNS for its survival than the Sena which will have to struggle to retain its power in the BMC. Raj will have to come up with a new strategy for political survival rather than resorting to the violent ways of targeting migrants to the dream city.