With polls imminent, Shiv Sena readies to play Gujarati card

Mumbai: Shiv Sena party workers are busy studying the demographic of more than two dozen wards in Mumbai. They are weighing the number of Gujaratis that these wards have, so that they can field their candidates from the party accordingly. The Sena claims that it is going to field almost 25 candidates who are Gujaratis.

The reasoning behind this, the party claims, is that after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of demonitisation, the Gujarati community has been pretty upset and is moving away from the BJP.

“Why shouldn’t we be the option for the community. If they are moving away from BJP, then they should vote for us and we have already started working towards this end,” said a leader associated with the study.

In the past two months, the Sena has seen an influx of Gujarati leaders from the NCP and Congress, who got some hundreds of their supporters along with them.

However, the Gujarati community has constituted a serious vote bank of the BJP and it is because of them that the BJP had been able to win more seats than the Sena in the last Assembly elections. The BJP has 15 has MLAs while the Sena has 14.

The Sena claims that the candidates for these seats would be Gujarati Shivsainiks associated with the party, but not someone from the outside.

“We have already focused on areas like Kalbadevi and Chira Bazaar in South Mumbai, while in the suburbs, Vile Parle, Malad, Borivali, Kandivali, Mulund, Ghatkopar and Chembur have been identified,” said the source.