Raj Thackeray to be star campaigner for Congress-NCP in Mumbai

Raj Thackeray will conduct rallies across the state to ensure Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat. Thackeray will, however, conduct public meetings on its individual platforms and not share the stage with any of the other political party leaders

Raj Thackeray to be star campaigner for Congress-NCP in Mumbai

Raj Thackeray

With Raj Thackeray deciding to hold rallies in North and North East constituencies of Mumbai, the opposition against Sanjay Nirupam former Mumbai Congress President is evidently clear. Whereas, even Nirupam has claimed that he will not be demanding Raj’s support as there is a strong ideological difference.

While MNS workers were in a fix whether in North West constituency where Nirupam is the candidate about whether to favour the Congress against the BJP - Shiv Sena alliance's candidate and if not then it will mean not adhering to chief's orders. However, recently when Thackeray decided to hold rallies in support of several veteran Congress NCP leaders, Nirupam's candidature constituency was conveniently missed out.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief will conduct rallies across the state to ensure Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat. Thackeray will, however, conduct public meetings on its individual platforms and not share the stage with any of the other political party leaders. Raj Thackeray will be holding rallies which are likely to begin from April 12, at Solapur, Nanded, Satara (Karad), Baramati, Maval, North and Northeast Mumbai, along with touring Nashik and Raigad constituencies.

The party workers have been upset with him ever since he took charge of Mumbai chief and supported the hawkers. Several fights broke out owing on streets because of him and now working for him, is something we don't want to, said MNS workers. The tiff between Nirupam and MNS had started about two years back when the MNS was looking to revive its party by taking up the issue of hawkers in the city. While there were reports of Congressmen attacking MNS workers in Malad, towards the end of 2017, MNS too had retaliated by protesting against them and the battle between the two had turned ugly.

A MNS leader, not willing to be named, said, “We don’t want to help the BJP ally and overrule our chief’s instructions but we cannot work for a person who mistreated our party workers and went to a level to also attack them for standing against the hawkers and were only echoing the sentiments of citizens.”

MNS has a good presence in the North West constituency and so the MNS votes are crucial for Congress-NCP and BJP-Shiv Sena Candidate as these crucial votes might play the deciding factor for win or loss of any candidate. In 2009 Lok Sabha elections, MNS Candidate Shalini Thackeray had received over 1.2 lakh votes whereas, in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, MNS Candidate managed to rope in over 66000 votes.

When questioned will Nirupam take help of MNS, he said, " Not at all, everybody including them knows my stand about MNS, I am contesting elections to defeat people who are associated with Modi government. Our aim is to defeat BJP- Sena and in this process whoever wants to mobilize some votes in my favor then I don't have any problem. I have my own ideological stand with regards to each and every thing , I cannot shift from my ideological stand. What I have said before the election, I will say during the election and will continue to say it post-election, too."

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