Mumbai: To remind voters that it in the fray for the municipal elections, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has decided to broadcast live speeches of party chief Raj Thackeray on floats in the shape of the party symbol, a rail engine, across Dadar. The party is concentrating on Dadar specifically because the area is its stronghold, which it is trying its best to retain.
Sandeep Deshpande, MNS party’s group leader in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), said, “We are all geared up for the elections, and have begun our campaign too. We have a float based on our election symbol on which we will mount LED screens that will show the speeches of Raj Thackeray live.”
Mr Thackeray is known for his oratory skills, but in spite of a being crowd puller, he hasn’t managed to convert footfall into votes. In the last BMC elections, the MNS had managed to surprise many in political circles by winning 27 seats, a tally very close to the BJP’s, which has 32 corporators.
However, with its popularity waning, the party, which once boasted of around half a dozen MLAs in Mumbai alone, couldn’t even win a single MLA seat in the city. The party, which grew by criticising the Sena, just last week extended a hand of friendship towards it, which was rejected by Sena party chief Uddhav Thackeray.
MNS is now contesting the elections on its own and, to retain Dadar, where it had all the six corporators, it is now focussing on these seats. “I had booked hoardings in Dadar a long time ago and posters of MNS have come up on them,” said Mr Deshpande. One such hoarding came up opposite Sena Bhavan a few days ago. To counter the same, Shiv Sena put a hoarding of its own three floors above that of the MNS’s.
