Thackeray steals a march on Shinde, declares candidates, begins campaign

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray announces 21 candidates for Lok Sabha elections, as CM Shinde struggles with seat-sharing with BJP in Mumbai.

MUMBAI: Even as chief minister Ekanath Shinde struggles to finalise the seat-sharing arrangement with ally BJP, his rival, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray has announced his 21 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. The candidates have begun campaigning, even in Mumbai which will go to the polls only in the last phase. Meanwhile, the Shinde camp is still unable to find candidates against Sena (UBT) MPs Arvind Sawant in Mumbai South and Amol Kiritkar in Mumbai North West.

Thackeray steals a march on Shinde, declares candidates, begins campaign

Uddhav Thackeray announced four more candidates on Wednesday, taking his list to 21. He also declared that if the Congress did not contest the Mumbai North constituency, his party would field a candidate from there. CM Shinde, on the other hand, was forced to drop two sitting MPs—Hemant Patil from Hingoli and Bhavana Gawali from Yavatmal-Washim—from his candidate list. Dropping Hemant Patil was a particularly big embarrassment for Shinde, as he already announced Patil’s name, but pressure from BJP MLAs in Hingoli forced him to take the step. Apart from this, Shinde is still negotiating with the BJP on seats such as Thane, Kalyan, Palghar, Mumbai North West, Mumbai South and Nashik.

Against this backdrop, Thackeray faction MP Sanjay Raut on Thursday took several potshots at Shinde. “The BJP has mounted pressure on the CM, due to which he could not even declare the candidature of his own MP son from Kalyan, Shrikant Shinde,” jibed Raut. He also said that his party had defeated big leaders like Narayan Rane in the past and expressed confidence that Shrikant Shinde could also be defeated. “Shrikant Shinde is just a child,” he said. “Uddhav Thackeray gave him a ticket to the Lok Sabha and made him an MP. If Shrikant Shinde has the guts, ask him to declare his candidature.”

The Thackeray faction’s candidates have already begun to campaign. While Uddhav Thackeray completed the first round of campaigning by visiting all the Lok Sabha constituencies in February and March, his party’s candidates in Mumbai have already started campaigning even though they are due to go to the polls only in the last phase on May 20.

MP Arvind Sawant has begun visits to housing societies and highrises to meet people and also started conducting meetings of shakha-level party workers to mobilise and charge them up for the campaign. Mumbai North East candidate Sanjay Dina Patil started his campaign two days ago with the rallies held for him by MLA Aaditya Thackeray in various assembly segments in his constituency. Mumbai North West candidate Amol Kirtikar began by organising a party workers’ meeting to chalk out the campaign plan.

BOX

Shinde’s betrayal Vs Thackeray’s word

In 2019, the undivided Shiv Sena won 18 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. When Shinde split the party in June 2022, 13 MPs left with him and five remained with Thackeray. At that time, Shinde had assured all the MPs and MLAs supporting him that they would be re-nominated in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections. However, he has failed to keep his promise. So far, the candidature of three MPs has been thrown out, and Nashik MP Hemant Godse could be next in line. On the other hand, Thackeray has re-nominated all the MPs who remained loyal to him.