Battle for BMC: How Raj Thackeray's MNS got derailed

MNS first turned its heat on north Indian taxi drivers in 2008 when party workers vandalised taxis and attacked several drivers accusing them of snatching jobs of lsquosons of the soilrsquoIn 2009 Maharashtra Navnirman Sena MNS chief Raj Thackeray declared his party a ldquokingmakerrdquo in the statersquos politics The year had marked a turning point in Rajrsquos political career Despite MNS being only three years old the party had marked a severe dent in Shiv SenaBJPrsquos votebank to singlehandedly win 13 crucial Assembly seats Though the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party NCP alliance once again managed to reach the majority mark after winning 144 seats MNS had stood fourth in the stateThe water harvesting project that MNS launched in Shivaji Park is currently dysfunctionalSwitch to the 2014 Assembly polls and the party saw a sudden downfall The man who had once captured the collective imagination of much of Mumbai and catapulted it to unexpected glory was now forced to settle on the fringe with just one seat to help his party save faceWorried that the MNS will continue its losing streak in the BMC polls next month many senior leaders have quit the party in the last two yearsWhile Raj had opposed the toll collection at toll plazas he later asked supporters to stop the protest upsetting party workersWhile the party is confident of getting enough support from people to retain the seats their descent is evident to many Political experts blame it on Rajrsquos promising aggressive strategy that has not just lost steam but also purpose in the last few yearsA failed strategy of violenceTo make its presence stronger in state politics MNS first turned the heat on north Indian taxi drivers in February 2008 They vandalised taxis and attacked several drivers accusing them of snatching jobs and livelihoods of the ldquosons of the soilrdquo After the violence the police also detained 25 party workersTheir aggressive strategy helped them in the BMC elections of 2012 with the party winning 28 seats in the corporationFollowing a good show in the civic elections MNS continued to play on the strategy of violenceLast year as the city was grappling with potholes through the monsoon MNS leader Sandip Deshpande had threatened to kidnap Gnorth ward officer if he failed to fix all the potholes within 24 hours in DadarRajrsquos move of holding Pakistani actors in Bollywood to ransom was another stunt in the recent past that kept bigwigs like Karan Johar and Shah Rukh Khan on the edgeHowever last year the party suffered a major setback when Prakash Patankar founder member and senior party leader from Dadar quit to join the Shiv Sena Patankar who was a first time corporator till 2012 from MNS in Dadar had played a vital role in setting up a strong base for the MNS in the Sena dominated areasWhat went wrongAccording to party sources many senior party leaders like former party MLA Bala Nandgaonkar Mangesh Sangle Shirish Parker Aditya Rajan Shirodkar were left out from the decisionmaking process Sandip Deshpande and Nitin Sardesai who are said to be close to Raj were the two leaders involved in finalising party election strategiesPatankar confirmed this saying ldquoRaj saheb sidelined many senior party leaders and showed trust in a handfulrdquoAccording to Patankar MNS also had absolutely no clarity about the plans for the upcoming civic elections ldquoI had raised this issue with several leaders including Raj saheb but my complaints went unheardrdquo he saidTargeting Sandip Deshpande MNS corporator and group leader in the BMC for tarnishing the partyrsquos image Patankar said ldquoDeshpandersquos aggressive style of locking a BMC engineer in his office and threatening to kidnap a ward officer only earned the party a bad name People donrsquot like this kind of stuntrdquo he saidFurther in 2014 during the Lok Sabha elections instead of focusing on their campaign the party went ahead and supported the BJP At a time when party candidates were seeking votes for themselves the party chief was asking his supporters to vote for Narendra Modi This hit the party hard and they lost all the seatsAnother issue was that while Raj had initially opposed toll collection at toll plazas across the state he later asked supporters to stop the protest without any explanationParty never did enoughAccording to Patankar MNS had also failed to fulfill most of the promises it had made in the 2012 civic elections including relocating hawkers from Dadar improving water supply in the DadarMahim area and redevelopment of the fish market ldquoAlso some of the projects that it had launched including free wifi and rain water harvesting system in Shivaji Park have become dysfunctionalrdquo Patankar addedAbhay Raul 37 a social worker in Prabhadevi area said ldquoOur MNS corporator has not done enough work on the ground level Several gardens like Khed Galli and Nardulla Tank have not been looked afterrdquoAbhijit Rane 40 who lives in Dadar and runs a printing press said ldquoThe party had promised to shift all the hawkers from the area and give them an alternate place But they went ahead and created selfie points in that area Who will benefit from such a projectrdquoMNS workers lost faithSensing the uncertainty in the party in the last two years many senior party leaders have quit the MNS Ram Kadam former MLA from Ghatkopar and Pravin Darekar from Magathane have quit the party and joined the BJP In the last six months five corporators have quit MNS and joined Sena and BJP While Sukhada Pawar from Santacruz and Prakash Darekar from Dahisar joined BJP Iswar Tayde from Kurla Suresh Awale from Ghatkopar and Geeta Chavan from Bandra joined the Sena According to sources a few more sitting corporators are planning to leave the party if they donrsquot get the tickets they were promisedWe will fight backWhile political observers have predicted MNSrsquo downfall in the BMC elections Deshpande is confident of getting enough support from the people to retain the seatsAdmitting that the confidence of party workers is slightly shaken Deshpande said ldquoWe have recently started a lsquowar roomrsquo like a helpline in Dadar to resolve civic problems When Raj saheb will start taking out public rallies it will definitely make a difference for the partyrdquoMocking the Sena and BJP Deshpande said ldquoWe have enough candidates for the elections In fact Sena and BJP are luring our workers since they are not getting strong candidatesrdquo