Winning Maharashtra via UP and Gujarat

With eye on elections next year, political parties have started wooing prominent communities

With the elections around the corner, 'tis the time to woo the voter. Political parties have already started on the north Indian and Gujarati communities. Considering the large population of both communities in the city, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) have increased interactions with them.

In the past nine months, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has attended city and state BJP functions at least three times, while MNS chief Raj Thackeray has interacted with Gujarati businessmen twice in recent times, to demonstrate that he is not against the community.

Wooing UPites
Adityanath even took part in a road show in Mumbai to invite industrialists to invest in UP in December 2017. He later attended a public rally in Palghar, where BJP won the Lok Sabha seat. Recently, Adityanath attended a function at ISKCON, Juhu, with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and RSS general secretary Bhayyaji Joshi. A BJP leader said Adityanath will be back in November for the inauguration of the Uttar Bharatiya Bhavan at Bandra East.

The UP education and health minister also visited BJP city chief Ashish Shelar's Ganpati Pandal. This is a clear indication that the BJP is trying to consolidate the Uttar Bharatiya vote bank. Political analysts feel many north Indian leaders and their followers are unhappy as they do not hold high posts in the state government. Considering the ire of the community, senior leaders are inviting more BJP leaders from UP.

Pursuing Gujaratis
Raj Thackeray too has started meeting Gujarati leaders and businessmen to explain to them that he and his party are not against the mercantile community. In July, MNS vice president Nayan Kadam had organised a meeting between Thackeray with Gujarati leaders from Borivli. In August, Thackeray held a similar meeting in Pune, where he explained his party's stand and claimed that he was not against communities that treat Maharashtra as their karma bhoomi and respect its tradition and culture.

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