Any politician basically needs three ingredients to cook him into a success. Personality, ideology and burning issues of the day are the three things that shape the perspective of any political leader. That is why a leader like Narendra Modi is successful because he harbors all the necessary elements that are essential. He has a strong personality with amazing oratory, he is a proponent of Hindu Nationalist Ideology and he stormed into national politics when UPA were grappling corruption charges, scams and scandals. He used them to his advantage to get a simple majority in the parliament.
Many leaders lack one of these necessary elements. Remove any one of the three, and the said politician will find a very bumpy ride ahead. Nitish Kumar had a good image. His ‘Secular-development-centric’ ideology found terrific support and when he came to power in 2005, Bihar featured at the bottom of almost all development indices. However, owing to ego issues he changed tracks and his leaning towards the grand coalition started threatening his hold over the state of Bihar. His Development-Centric image took a hit. His ‘ghar wapasi’ back into the NDA fold reinstated his position as a forward thinking politician. This example is a testimony to the fact that absence of any of the aforementioned elements may cause upheaval in the political fortunes of a leader.
Raj Thackeray was charismatic. He started his own political bold journey with the establishment of MNS. However there is one area where Raj Thackrey went very wrong. The issues picked up by his party and its aftermath has reduced MNS to one seat in the assembly and is threatening its very existence.
Raj Thackeray is now on social media which undoubtedly is an attempt to revive his political fortunes. Perhaps it is too late for him to bank on this platform,but it could very well be a new opportunity for him to garner the much needed reach-out to the youth in Maharashtra!
Raj Thackeray has inherited personality traits from his charismatic uncle Bal Thackeray who had spearheaded Sena to its glory in the late 1990’s. His style, mannerisms and oratory is in fact a replica of Bal Thackeray. This was compounded by the fact that Raj Thackeray has a strong assertiveness to his personality. A cartoonist, he seemingly was popular amongst the youth and had politics in his blood unlike his cousin. Uddhav Thackeray was reserved and seemed to be a reluctant politician with an almost no connect with the masses. When Bala Saheb chose his heir apparent, it was a shocker since it was tending towards dynasty than merit. Raj Thackeray was in a way better than Uddhav but unfortunately was sidelined.
As an effective and independent leader, Raj Thackeray formed his own outfit called MNS (Maharashtra Navnirman Sena). This again was a step in the right direction. The launch of the party was a threat to the Shiv Sena and it was thought that MNS will cut into Sena’s Marathi vote bank. A lot of cadre from the Sena was supposedly poised to enter into the new Sena and it was giving nightmares to Matoshree. The pomp and splendor in which MNS was introduced, it looked as if it is going to play a significant role in Maharashtra polity.
With good leadership skills and a new viable platform, Raj Thackeray seemed poised for a good beginning to his political career. And this is where he went haywire and astray. With mannerisms and style copied from his uncle, even the formation of MNS seemed to have stylized according to Shiv Sena.
But then he did one thing wrong and that was aping the way Shiv Sena was launched.Raj Thackeray tried to replicate the Marathi Manoos sentiments.
In 1960’s when Bal Thackeray started Sena at Shivaji park, his main target were the South Indians who came for jobs in Mumbai. Raj Thackeray tried the same with the north Indians.
In order to compete with the Shiv Sena for Marathi vote bank, Raj Thackeray picked up the issue of Marathi Asmita and Manoos. His son of the soil retort was received with a lot of flak. He was arrested and the state was disturbed with the advent of attack on North Indians. However, there are two reasons as to why his supposed political movement failed to translate into votes and power. Mumbai is a cosmopolitan mega-city where Marathis form only 40 percent of the population. This is followed by the fact that politics of hate is now outdated and obsolete. The reason why Narendra Modi today is popular in youth is owing to his image as a man with a mission to develop the country. Raj Thackeray could have gathered that understanding and focused more on other issues rather than son of the soils. Maharashtra as a state was reeling with corruption and farmer suicides when MNS was inaugurated into the state politics. These issues could have been the bone of contention for the newly formed MNS. This was complicated by the fact that a chauvinistic party was never welcomed by other segments of political landscape. Shiv Sena even if is a Marathi Manoos based party, it also had to cater to other components of the society to stay alive in the state politics. Unfortunately, MNS failed to galvanize the masses and now its presence in Maharashtra is astonishingly negligible. Even MIM has more seats in the assembly than MNS is a testimony to the fact that the plot somewhere went horribly wrong for Raj Thackeray.
In their bid to attack north Indians, MNS and Raj Thackeray have completely ignored the fact that post 2013 Hindus were converting into a solid vote bloc. Raj Thackrey could have wooed Hindus but he preferred attacking North Indian migrants.
Owing to the competition between the two Sena’s for Marathi votes, greater cause of Hindutva somewhere was sidelined and forgotten. Raj Thackeray was not able to carry the legacy of his uncle forward and that affected his political fortunes dearly.
Intermittently, Raj has praised PM Modi for his work in Gujarat and wanted Maharashtra to be developed along the same lines. That point of time it seemed Raj was seeking developmental scheme of things to kick start his political career which unreasonably took a turn for hate polity.
Raj Thackeray coming on Facebook perhaps again is a leaf out of PM Modi who enjoys enormous online support. But his attempts to capture public imagination needs to be coupled with picking up real issues rather than chauvinism. PM Modi is popular on social media for his all round facets of his leadership and not just Twitter or Facebook accounts. Raj Thackeray has to realize that and position himself tactfully for the same.
Regionalism is slowly getting diminished owing to the rise of the BJP as the uni-pole in Indian politics. Shiv Sena except for BMC and Thane is facing crisis elsewhere in the state. If MNS and Raj Thackeray need to replace or compete with the Sena, it needs to reinvent itself to get into that coveted position. Rhetoric and hate politics will not help and has no place in a new rising India. Raj Thackeray needs a better introspection to resurrect him as a formidable force in the state politics.
