Election Results 2019: The spectacular failure of Raj Thackeray

Raj Thackeray drew huge crowds wherever he went; but come counting day, it turned out that they did not translate to votes. Just what went wrong with the other Thackeray's gambit?

Election Results 2019: The spectacular failure of Raj Thackeray

Raj Thackeray

Raj Thackeray thought he would become to Modi what Jayaprakash Narayan was to Indira — a decisive nemesis. But Maharashtra's voters rejected his idea, equally decisively. In 1977, JP — as Narayan was fondly known — appealed to the people to defeat the incumbent without himself being a candidate. In 2019, Thackeray tried the same.

His Maharashtra Navnirman Sena did not contest a single seat of the state's 48 parliamentary constituencies. Thackeray's innovative campaign, which included video presentations on the failures and false promises of Prime Minister Narendra Modi made him popular. Crowds thronged his rallies. But, come counting day, and the results showed that Thackeray's irreverent humour did not impress voters after all.

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The area outside MNS chief Raj Thackeray's residence Krishna Kunja at Shivaji Park was deserted on Thursday. Pic/Ashish Raje

Thackeray addressed 10 rallies, including in (former chief minister Ashok Chavan's) Nanded, (senior Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde's) Solapur and (Mumbai Congress president Milind Deora's) Mumbai South). But, the Congress/NCP candidates lost to the saffron alliance in all but two seats where he campaigned. NCP's Sunil Tatkare defeated Shiv Sena's Anant Geete in Raigad. However, going by the 2014 results, it is clear that the MNS had little to do with NCP's win here. As well as in the Satara seat, where NCP's Udayanraje Bhosale won.

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That year, when there was Modi wave, Tatkare had lost by a slender margin of 2,100 votes — thanks to an independent candidate with a similar name who polled 9,700 votes, and thus paved the way for Geete's win. Political analyst Abhay Deshpande told mid-day that Thackeray succeeded in garnering crowd, but failed to understand that they don't translate to votes so easily.

"If there is no MNS candidate in the fray, most of its supporters will endorse another saffron candidate," he said. "A saffron voter may, if they have no choice, forfeit their vote, but will never move to the Congress or the NCP." In 2009, when the MNS contested, all of its candidates polled more than 100,000 votes. Addressing the media in Mumbai, even NCP chief Sharad Pawar was of the opinion that had the MNS fielded candidates, it would have made a difference in the results.

While MNS leaders were unwilling to comment for this report, a senior party functionary, on condition of anonymity, claimed the MNS was the only party that took on the BJP, especially Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. "Raj-saheb was the only leader who dared. Saheb's speeches made national headlines and people were convinced with what he had to say. Before offering any comment on the outcome of the results, we would like to study why the crowds did not translate to votes," he added. Thackeray had, in his speeches, launched into the Modi-Shah duo on issues like GST, unemployment, demonetisation, smart cities and the assurance of bringing back black money allegedly parked abroad.

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