Mumbai: Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, who has flip-flopped from being a Modi supporter to Modi basher to supporter again, Friday said his support to the PM is for five years, and listed out six specific demands that he expects to be fulfilled if Modi wins a third term at the Centre.
Thackeray was speaking at Mahayuti’s final election rally in Maharashtra where he shared the stage with Modi at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park.
The demands that the MNS chief listed include classical language status to the Marathi language, expediting work on the much-delayed Mumbai-Goa highway that goes through the coastal Konkan region and inclusion of the Maratha empire’s history in school education across the country.
“I am standing here with you Modiji for the next five years. All of us in Maharashtra have a lot of expectations from you. I just want to talk about these expectations,” Thackeray said, speaking just before Modi at the Shivaji Park rally.
In almost every alternate election, Thackeray’s MNS has swung from aggressively campaigning for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or against it, coming up with compelling justifications for its stance each time.
In this Lok Sabha election, he has joined hands with the Mahayuti, comprising the BJP, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Ramdas Athawale’s Republican Party of India (RPI). Like the RPI, the MNS is not contesting any of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.
Also Read: ‘Don’t run against Rutuja Latke’ — MNS’ Raj Thackeray asks BJP to drop out of high-stakes bypoll
Raj Thackeray’s demands
Speaking at the Shivaji Park rally, Thackeray said his first expectation from Modi if he gets a third term will be getting classical language status for the Marathi language.
Thackeray said this has been a long-pending demand in Maharashtra and that he is expecting that PM Modi will “give that respect for the Marathi language” when he becomes PM for the third time.
His second demand was that the central government should include the history of the Maratha empire in school textbooks across the country. “For a thousand years, outsiders ruled India, but for over 125 years, the Maratha empire was ruling the country,” Thackeray said.
Next, he urged Modi to come up with a plan for the conservation and beautification of the many forts associated with Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji in Maharashtra.
“When will the Shivaji statue in the sea come up? I don’t know. But my request is that if there are any memorials of our Chhatrapati, they are our forts. To preserve them, there should be a committee of international standards so that generations to come will know the history,” Thackeray said.
The MNS chief, whose party had last year held an agitation against long delays in the completion of the Mumbai-Goa highway project, asked Modi to expedite the project “at a time when across the country there are multiple roads, flyovers and highways coming up speedily”.
Work on the highway, which will boost connectivity from Mumbai to Konkan districts such as Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg, has been going on since 2010.
Thackeray also asked Modi to ensure that the Centre grants more money and time for improving the Mumbai suburban rail service, often described as Mumbai’s lifeline.
The MNS chief’s next demand was the only one that Modi, who spoke after him, immediately met.
Thackeray asked the PM to clarify that his government will not change the country’s Constitution at a time when the opposition INDIA alliance has been campaigning on this fear.
“You have said it many times, but say it loud and clear that Babasaheb’s constitution will not be touched to shut people who are spreading fears,” the MNS chief said.
Modi in his speech Friday called himself “samvidhan rakshak” (protector of the Constitution).
Justifying flip-flops
In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the MNS had contested independently although it strongly supported the candidature of Modi for PM. The party fielded 10 candidates, all of whom lost their deposits.
For the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Thackeray had taken a staunch anti-BJP, anti-Modi stand. His party did not contest a single seat, but he addressed multiple rallies across Maharashtra that drew huge crowds, donning the avatar of an investigative politician, talking about alleged shortcomings of the Modi government with documents and videos as evidence.
Now, in 2024, Thackeray is pro-Modi again.
“There are two phases of the Modi government as I see it. The first phase was Modiji’s first five years. Whatever I had to say about it I said in 2019,” Thackeray said, speaking before Modi Friday.
The second phase, he said, were Modi’s five years from 2019 to 2024 when, according to Thackeray, the PM implemented decisions that he (Thackeray) had never thought would materialise in his lifetime.
The MNS chief cited the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, the abrogation of Article 370, the abolishment of triple talaq and the mega vaccination drive to fight the Covid-19 pandemic as examples.
“The things that couldn’t happen in so many years, getting such things done, is the most important,” Thackeray said.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: Raj Thackeray wants a Modi-mukt Bharat, and is shooting from Congress-NCP shoulder