Thursday, June 4, 2009

SPECIAL REPORT | Mamta Sen

MNS SPOILED THE POLLS FOR SENA

URL: http://www.covertmagazine.com/mamta-sen.htm

MUMBAI: “We have created new voters in these elections,” claims the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena. The Maharashtra State unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party is restless. “The Shiv Sena is deliberately playing down the fact that the split within has helped the Congress-NCP combine in the State,” senior BJP leaders point out. The MNS made a huge dent in the Sena vote bank, and almost all of the MNS’ 11 candidates got over one lakh votes each.

However, the Shiv Sena insists, for the record, that it faces no threat from the MNS, and there is no danger that the latter would eat into the Sena’s traditional Marathi stronghold. Sena spokesperson Neelam Gore says that according to an internal assessment, the MNS had done well wherever there was a consolidation of Congress votes. “If the split had been the reason, then we would not have won the Kalyan seat. Why didn’t the MNS make a mark in constituencies like Shirur, Buldana or Hingoli where the Nationalist Congress Party got defeated and the Shiv Sena won?” she asked, brushing aside questions about sharper divisions between the Sena and the MNS in the near future. “Balasaheb was forced to issue a statement in his journal Saamna against any such reunion taking place. There is no question of a truce or a merger. The media has been giving nonsensical space to this so-called merger, which I believe is all humbug,” she adds.

AKHIL CHITRE, executive member of the MNS Vidyarthi Sena — youth wing of the MNS — is of the view that the MNS has not cut into the traditional Sena vote bank. He says, “We have created our own vote bank, which is the new breed of young voters. They are educated and young — between the age groups of 18 and 35 years.” The key constituencies where the MNS has performed exceptionally well are Nashik, Pune, Thane and all of Mumbai’s six constituencies. Nashik and South Mumbai proved to be two key constituencies for the MNS. The party’s South Mumbai candidate Bala Nandgaonkar put up a tough fight against Milind Deora of the Congress. “Nandgaonkar has drawn in a lot of the first-time voters, especially Muslims from South Mumbai, while Shirish Parkar has succeeded in getting the Muslim, Gujarati and Marwari votes in North Mumbai,” Chitre points out. “We were keen to contest from Ratnagiri and Raigad since we were sure to get elected there, but we couldn’t because of a lack of funds,” he adds. He cannot say if the MNS and the Sena will join hands, but does not think they will. He does not agree that the MNS has contributed to the Congress’ victory by dividing Sena votes and insists, “We have created our own niche on the issue of development and ‘sons of the soil’.”

THE BJP believes that it has retained its vote bank, but the Shiv Sena has not been able to do so. “We have always maintained that the Congress is promoting the MNS to cut into our votes. The Congress has been funding them as well. This clearly shows in the results,” says Madhav Bhandari, BJP spokesperson in Maharashtra.Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray points out that the Sena may not have won a single seat in Mumbai in the Lok Sabha elections but the situation will change soon. “The Marathi manoos knows who its torchbearer is. Wait and see,” he says