26/11 shadow hangs over Cong-NCP in Mumbai

The Sena lost Narayan Rane to the Congress and Raj Thackeray walked out to form his own Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS),which wants to break the monopoly of the Sena on the sons-of-the-soil and Marathi pride issues. The BJP has lost its most important leader in the state,Pramod Mahajan. The party has attempted to fill the void by inviting Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to campaign,but he has not been able to match the versatility of Mahajan who could not only mobilise funds and draw crowds for rallies,but also had direct rapport with Sena chief Bal Thackeray. The Sena,too,has said that Modi is no match for the late Mahajan.

On the other hand,the Congress-NCP alliance is facing a tough task with too many competitors for its traditional vote bank. In the aftermath of the MNS attacks on migrant jobseekers,the BSP,which had played spoiler for the Congress-NCP in about a dozen seats in the last polls,is wooing North Indians in Mumbai and Thane districts,apart from seeking votes on its “Sarvajan Samabhaav” platform and for Mayawati as the first Dalit PM. Likewise,the Samajwadi Party,too,is seeking votes of Muslims and migrants.

Another factor that would hit the ruling alliance is delimitation,which has changed the face of many constituencies. For instance,in Mumbai South,delimitation has added working class areas of Sewree,Byculla and Worli to the elite character of the constituency,posing a challenge to incumbent Congress MP Milind Deora. His success would depend on how much the BSP eats into the Congress votebank,while the prospects of his main rival and Sena’s MP from neighbouring Mumbai South-Central,Mohan Rawle,would depend on the kind of inroads the MNS has been able to make into the Sena’s votebank. In Mumbai North-East,the Congress has lost its strongholds of Kurla and Chembur,raising the hopes of the BJP.

The inaccessibility and unsatisfactory performance of the incumbent Congress MP and filmstar from Mumbai North,Govind Ahuja,aka Govinda,may sway votes in favour of the BJP’s former Union minister Ram Naik.

In the last polls,Thane was won by the Sena,while the tribal Dahanu seat was won by the Congress. After delimitation,two new constituencies – Kalyan and Bhiwandi – were created and Dahanu was renamed Palghar. Except Palghar,where incumbent Congress MP Damu Shingada is pitted against BJP’s Chintaman Wanga and CPM’s Lahanu Kom and Baliram Jadhav of Bahujan Vikas Aghadi,the other three seats in Thane district (Thane,Kalyan and Bhiwandi) have a substantial migrant population. The Congress-NCP alliance and the Sena-BJP alliance face the BSP and the SP,who are wooing migrants by offering them protection against the Sena and MNS and criticising Congress-NCP for failing to protect them.

As a result,the fate of both the main alliances seems to be in the hands of spoilers like BSP and MNS in Maharashtra’s final round.