Raj Thackeray has joined fingers with the BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Pune:
Barely 72 hours after Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray introduced unconditional help to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling MahaYuti authorities, he abruptly discovered himself catapulted from the political fringes onto the electoral mainstage, on Friday.
The MNS chief — whose occasion image is a ‘Railway Engine’ — finds a spot of delight on the brand new posters, banners, handbills and publicity materials of the Nationalist Congress Social gathering (NCP) candidate from Baramati, Sunetra Ajit Pawar.
Baramati has already made it among the many handful of prime Lok Sabha 2024 constituencies with a ‘Huge Combat’ scheduled between NCP President and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar’s spouse Sunetra, and his cousin sister, Nationalist Congress Social gathering (SP) Working President Supriya Sule, daughter of the Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar.
The visibly powerful combat between the ‘bhabhi’ (Sunetra) and ‘nanad’ (Supriya) has sparked large curiosity not solely among the many locals however everywhere in the nation, even labelled as a contest between a ‘rookie’ and a ‘veteran’ — with all of the women and men coming to the help of the occasion on either side.
Now, with Raj Thackeray’s entry, Sunetra A Pawar’s place appears to have beefed up, and his bespectacled photograph in a saffron kurta is seen rubbing shoulders with the opposite bigwigs, occupying a good spot.
They’re Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, Raj Thackeray, RPI (A) President and Union Minister Ramdas Athawale, Rashtriya Samaj Social gathering chief Mahadev Jankar, and Rayat Kranti Sanghatana head Sadabhau Khot.
On the prime left is perched former Deputy Prime Minister Y. B. Chavan — who was the Bombay State’s final CM and the primary CM of the newly-created state of Maharashtra, in addition to the founding father of the unique Shiv Sena Balasaheb Thackeray.
Dealing with an onslaught of opposition from virtually your entire Pawar clan, Sunetra A. Pawar is earnestly campaigning to wrest the Baramati LS seat from Supriya Sule’s clutches.
No person believes it is going to be a cakewalk for Sunetra A. Pawar — in any case, the Baramati LS has elected Sharad Pawar 5 instances, plus one by-election, Ajit Pawar Pawar as soon as and Supriya Sule thrice.
It has been a standard Congress-NCP (undivided) bastion from the 1957 LS elections, barring two events — throughout the Janata Social gathering wave of 1977 and a bypoll in 1985.
The NCP based by Sharad Pawar on June 10, 1999, was vertically cut up in July 2023, akin to Balasaheb Thackeray’s Shiv Sena based on June 19, 1966, which suffered a cut up in June 2022.
The upcoming electoral struggle in Baramati and the remainder of the state can be considered as a kind of public referendum on the splintered factions — Shiv Sena led by CM Shinde and NCP helmed by Ajit Pawar — which at the moment are touted because the ‘authentic events’.
In truth, Sharad Pawar could not resist dipping a pinkie into the boiling cauldron by impishly commenting on how the Baramati battle can be between an area Pawar (Supriya) and an outsider Pawar (Sunetra) — which evoked open mirth although the hidden message was not misplaced on both facet.
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