Congress wary of Raj Thackeray in anti-BJP front

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, March 20

The Congress party is wary of Raj Thackeray and his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena becoming part of an anti-BJP front which is taking shape in Maharashtra.

Senior Congress party leaders are worried that the party could lose support among voters in North Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar should the MNS join a coalition of which it is a part.

“We are not happy with the stand of MNS on a number of issues,” Ashok Chavan, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief, told reporters here.

Though the MNS has been completely marginalised with its corporators in the Mumbai Municipal Corporation joining the Shiv Sena, Thackeray has been drawing big crowds at various protest programmes organised by
the MNS.

Even the party’s annual Gudi Padwa rally at Shivaji Park on Sunday saw a large number of people in attendance.

The MNS chief hit out at the Central Government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and also indicated that he was ready to be part of a larger anti-BJP front.

According to observers, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar is keen on Raj Thackeray joining the anti-BJP alliance that he is putting together in Maharashtra.

Over the past few weeks, Thackeray has had at least two meetings with the Maratha strongman.

Last month the MNS chief carried out a much publicised ‘interview’ with Pawar in which the latter played the Marathi card much to everyone’s surprise.

“We see less of Marathi and more of Gujarati in signboards in Mira and Bhayandar (on the outskirts of Mumbai),” Pawar said in the interview which was televised across the state.

The MNS had kicked up a row over a Jain religious figure asking voters in the twin township to vote for the BJP in the last civic polls and Thackeray has been playing up the growing presence of Gujaratis and other migrants in some neighbourhoods.

On the other hand, sections of the Congress and the NCP feel that friendly fights with the MNS and the Shiv Sena should it contest the next elections on its own would help reduce the BJP’s tally in the Lok Sabha and assembly polls.