In a free for all, MNS faces battle of survival

NASHIK: As major political players in the state decide to go solo in the assembly elections to test their individual strength vis-à-vis their alliance partners as well as opponents, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) embarks on a salvage operation in its strongest bastion.
Nashik has always been a favourite destination in the itinerary of MNS chief Raj Thackeray, right from his days as the high profile youth leader of Shiv Sena.Over the years, he had cultivated strong bonds with like-minded people and even launched a placement agency for the "sons of the soil" called Shiv Udyog Sena, which, incidentally, withered away.
Nevertheless, when he broke away from the Shiv Sena to form MNS in 2006, most of his trusted lieutenants switched loyalties. In the 2007 Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) elections, the MNS made an impressive debut with 12 corporators getting elected (the highest by the party in the state). Subsequently, in the 2009 assembly polls, 13 MNS candidates got elected. In Nashik city, the MNS won three of the four assembly constituencies. The first time the MNS was elected to power was in the NMC in 2012, when it emerged as the single largest party with 40 corporators in the house of 122 members.
Since the formation of the party, Thackeray was drawing crowds through his sarcasm and scathing attack on other parties that were in power in the state, Centre and local bodies. Two-and-a-half years after the MNS's tenure in NMC, Thackeray is at the receiving end by all other parties for failure to perform. Even his pet project, the Goda Park on the banks of Godavari, is in a shambles months after being handed over to a private entity for development. The recent Lok Sabha elections revealed that even in the assembly segments of Nashik, the Sena candidate polled more votes than his MNS counterpart. After the drubbing, Thackeray made some organisational changes, but it created a rift in the party in Nashik. Under mounting pressure to showcase some "achievement" in the assembly poll campaign, a jittery Thackeray went to the extent of promising to make Nashik a free WiFi city and in desperation even wanted to explore the possibility of introducing a tram service. Thackeray, who had publicly announced that he would himself contest the assembly polls and a safe constituency in Nashik city was expected to be his choice, has become speechless on the issue.
The break-up of the Congress-NCP and BJP-Sena alliances in the run-up to the assembly elections has come as a windfall for the MNS, which had made an impressive political debut in the past by acting as a spoiler for the saffron combine. The city has four constituencies, of which three have been won by the MNS in the last polls, while the fourth (Deolali) is a bastion of Sena veteran Babanrao Gholap. The MNS has fielded outgoing MLAs Vasant Gite and Nitin Bhosale from Nashik-Central and Nashik-West constituencies, resepectively. In Nashik-East, former chairman of the NMC's standing committee Ramesh Dhogande has been nominated after the outgoing MLA, Uttamrao Dhikale declined re-election. In Deolali, the MNS has fielded former Sena corporator Pratap Mehrolia, who was in the race for Sena's ticket after Gholap was convicted in a disproportionate assets case and barred from contesing polls. The Sena has nominated Gholap's son Yogesh.
In the assembly elections, the BJP will use Narendra Modi as its poster boy, while the Sena would play the sons-of-the-soil card. The Congress, as well as the NCP, might find it difficult to regain lost ground. While the four major parties in the "saffron" and "secular" alliances would fight against former allies, apart from traditional opponents, the MNS would even be facing an uphill task in retaining hold over its strongest bastion. The reason: it also will have to face the anti-incumbency factor because it is ruling the civic body and has nothing worth showcasing as yet in the name of governance with a difference.