BJP pushes MNS Chief Raj Thackeray to go the whole hog for civic polls, to edge out Sena & establish BJP rule over Mumbai, Thane

Mumbai: Seven more Uddhav Thackeray loyalist MLAs and a whopping 20 Members of Parliament (including Sena, Congress, NCP and independents MPs) have opened back-room parleys with BJP’s Maharashtra Chanakya Devendra Fadnavis over the last few days, even as one more Sena MLA joined the Eknath Shinde camp on Monday. When asked about this Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis did not accept or deny the fresh hobnobbing of MLAs and MPs while noting that Sena only had 18 MPs.

A senior BJP leader, however, told First India, “BJP’s Maharashtra Chanakya will never openly talk about ongoing operation like ‘Lotus’ that just bore fruit and returned him and the Shinde led Shiv Sena faction back to power in Maharashtra. The state has reverted to our natural alliance that was hijacked into an unnatural and hybrid political formation of MVA for the last tw0- and-a-half years.” In addition to the remaining Sena’s public figures, Chanakya Fadnavis has also offered some political advise to MNS Chief Raj Thackeray. “It is the most opportune time for the MNS, when the Uddhav Thackeray camp is at its lowest political situation, to launch all out and ensure that his part fights for each and every seat in the forthcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections,” Fadnavis told a select bunch of news persons on Sunday immediately after the election of his blueeyed boy Rahul Narvekar as the Speaker of Maharashtra Vidhan Parishad.

“Fadnavis political gameplan is clear, he is seeking to blunt any possible sympathy wave that the Uddhav Thackeray led faction will seek to derive from voters in the forthcoming municipal elections across Maharashtra, particularly in Mumbai and Thane cities by empowering as CM Eknath Shinde who was in the Sena. Additionally, he is triggering Raj Thackeray to launch into a political drive to capture disillusioned Hindutva voters who may feel a similarly displaced sense of Hindutva in remaining with the UT camp and thus vote for the MNS party,” a senior BJP leader said. BJP seeks to improve on its tally of 83 corporators, to the Shiv Sena’s 85 seats bagged in the 2017 civic polls of BMC. A division of the Marathi Hindutva voters between the Shinde faction against the Uddhav and Raj factions may spell sweet success for the BJP to win the civic polls, the BJP feels.