Raj Thackeray pledges to defeat PM Modi & Amit Shah

Since the announcement of the Lok Sabha poll dates, all parties have started their preparation to win the maximum seats. After Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra is the second largest state in terms of Lok Sabha seats. UP has 80 seats while Maharashtra has 48 seats. 

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena (SS) joined hands last month after ending their differences. The alliance of Sena- BJP is a troublesome prospect for the Congress-NCP alliance, given in Maharashtra, the former jointly has a large voter base. 

When Sharad Pawar was trying to stitch a grand alliance in Maharashtra, at that time, everyone’s eyes were on Raj Thackeray. But to the surprise of everyone, the MNS chief announced that his party will not contest the Lok Sabha polls.

On Wednesday, Raj Thackeray explained his decision to his cadre, but along with that, he also appealed his cadre to work hard to defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The MNS chief has said that this election is Narendra Modi- Amit shah versus people of India. 

How Raj Thackeray can spoil chances of NDA on some seats?

Even though in the last 5 years, the graph of MNS has come down drastically, but Raj Thackeray still holds the charisma to pull back voters. MNS still has a hardcore vote base which supports Raj Thackeray on Marathi manoos agenda.

In 2014, because of Modi wave, like all other parties, Raj Thackeray's MNS also had to face a humiliating defeat. Even though all his candidates lost their deposit, but they still held more than 40 to 50 thousand votes in each of constituencies in Mumbai.

READ: Raj Thackeray's MNS Not To Contest Lok Sabha Polls 2019

As Raj Thackeray had appealed his voters to vote against Modi & Shah, so, it is believed that MNS’s vote bank could very well be transferred to the alliance of Congress and NCP. 

In 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Raj Thackeray's party had got more than 1 lakh votes in each constituency of Mumbai and Thane. At that time, it was because of Raj Thackeray that Sena-BJP had lost all the 6 seats in Mumbai region. This time also, the MNS chief has pledged that even though his party is not contesting, but he will campaign against BJP to save the country. 

To prepare his strategy of the campaign against BJP, Raj Thackeray had met Sharad Pawar at his residence on Wednesday. Both leaders discussed the poll strategy in detail. 

Division of Dalit-Muslim votes will help Sena- BJP

Before 2014, Maharashtra was the citadel of the Congress & NCP. But after the 2014 Loksabha polls, political power center has switched from Congress-NCP to BJP.

In the last 5 years, BJP has become the most powerful & largest voter base party in Maharashtra. Sharad Pawar was aware of this reality and that's why he tried to form a grand alliance of 8-10 like-minded parties which can defeat BJP.

But Pawar’s efforts have gone in vain, given the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samajwadi party, Prakash Ambedkar's party, MIM & other smaller parties decided not to be a part of the mahagathabandhan.

Prakash Ambedkar & MIM will now contest together, which is likely to dent Congress-NCP's Muslim and Dalit vote bank, which in turn will benefit none other than Sena-BJP alliance.

Same is the case with the SP-BSP alliance. While BSP has a good presence in Vidharbha region, the SP holds good control on some Muslim pockets. Both SP-BSP will also dent congress-NCP's vote bank which will ultimately help BJP.