Amchi Right Vs National Right

Raj Thackeray’s aggressive stance against Modi is aimed at a windfall in the assembly polls

- Prachi Pinglay-Plumber

Last week BJP leader Vinod Tawde approached the Election Commission seeking a look into the funding of MNS chief Raj Thackeray’s campaign, which is sharply directed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. “If his party is not contesting, then who is funding its rallies?” asked Tawde. With just two rallies under his belt, Thackeray has garnered more eyeballs and more YouTube views than most senior leaders of any other party in Maharashtra. Thackeray’s campaign for a “Modi-Shah Mukt Bharat” is set to help the opposition in the state, i.e. Congress and NCP, though he has not gone for any alliance.

Is it going to benefit him in the upcoming assembly elections, is it going to infuse new life into his withering party, is it going to further demoralise the already demotivated Shiv Sena cadre? Or is he simply doing this selflessly for the state and the country, as he claims?

Thackeray plans to address around 10 to 12 of these public meetings where he tears into the promises made by Modi before the 2014 polls and other alleged failures of the BJP. The speeches—a mix of characteristic Raj Thackeray bravado and corporate presentation—are peppered with videos of Modi’s announcements and newspaper clippings. That he is a crowd-puller is not new, what is new is the systematic turn in his politics from the time he endorsed Modi to his U-turn to become a BJP-baiter.