Uddhav, Aditya to storm Maharashtra with 100 rallies till Oct 13

BJP's alleged greed for CM post, Congress-NCP misrule to be major poll planks

Undeterred by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s decision to break the 25-year-old alliance, Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aditya are gearing up to storm the election arena, all guns blazing. They are likely to attend more than 100 rallies and road shows.

Uddhav is expected to address 50 rallies and the rest by the heir apparent. Aditya, who tried to broker a seat-sharing deal with senior BJP leader O P Mathur, has been Sena’s lead campaigner after Uddhav. These rallies coincide with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s whirlwind tour but the party is in no mood to amend its programme. Uddhav has already declared that BJP will realise what a wave means.

Uddhav, who has managed to quell a rebellion within the party in the run-up to the Assembly polls, has lambasted BJP in its maiden rally on September 27 in Mumbai saying his party was not a godown or a shoe shop where customers can demand for choices.

Uddhav said the next chief minister would be from the Sena. He is expected to attack the BJP’s plans to divide Maharashtra and reducing the importance of Mumbai. The Sena has already launched social media campaign appealing voters to foil such attempts.

On Wednesday, Uddhav said the BJP should not blame the Sena for the split in the National Democratic Alliance and asked it to introspect why its allies are deserting it. If there was indeed a Narendra Modi wave, why should the BJP plan 15 rallies to be addressed by the prime minister, he asked.

A Sena leader close to Uddhav told Business Standard: “The party is not going to make the BJP as its sole target in the campaign. The 15-year misrule of the Congress-NCP government and various scams will be taken up. Voters will be told how Maharashtra had lost its glory during the Congress-NCP rule.”

Moreover, Uddhav is keen on repeating the “Shiv Shakti-Bhim Shakti” model in the Assembly polls, though the Republican  Party of India President Ramdas Athavale has deserted him to join BJP. “The Shiv Shakti-Bhim Shakti model helped Sena retain its supremacy in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections in February 2012. Dalits are divided in various factions of RPI but Shiv Sena has succeeded in increasing its presence among the community,” the leader quoted above said.

The Sena doesn’t have any plans to play up the Marathi-Gujarati divide, especially in Mumbai, where there are 36 Assembly seats. Subhash Desai, a Sena leader, said there was no such divide.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena will market its development vision for Mumbai and Maharashtra. This apart, the party is giving maximum thrust also on social media, tweets, emails. The saffron party collates number of missed calls on its dedicated phone line.