Sena blames wrong selection of candidates

After a crushing defeat in the Assembly polls,the Shiv Sena may have to return to aggressive identity-based politics to regain lost ground in the state....

After a crushing defeat in the Assembly polls,the Shiv Sena may have to return to aggressive identity-based politics to regain lost ground in the state,party workers said on Thursday. Anti-incumbency has not worked. Uddhav may lose faith in constructive politics, said a Sena activist,referring to Uddhav Thackerays attempts to secularise the party in the past by trying to attract the North Indians and Neo-Buddhists,who have been traditionally at loggerheads with the Sena.

A back to basics phase may be possible, said the Sena worker,adding that the Sena which apart from losing seats also faced the ignominy of having Leader of Opposition Ramdas Kadam being trounced from Guhagar would have to take to raising emotional issues like Raj Thackerays MNS.

He added that after communal riots in Miraj and Sangli last month,Uddhav had refused to rush to the troubled twin towns in Western Maharashtra to fan the flames unlike BJP national general secretary Gopinath Munde.

Apart from repeating the same faces a number of times,wrong selection of candidates cost the party dear,workers said. A Sena MP admitted this turned the tables on the party and rued that they were unable to tap into the anti-incumbency vote. He added that the cadres were also demoralised after the Lok Sabha debacle.

Moreover,the Sena-BJP failed to emerge as an aggressive and constructive Opposition party. While Kadam focused only on taking on Industries Minister and Sena dissident Narayan Rane,Munde,in a far cry from his days as a petulant leader of Opposition during the reign of Sharad Pawar,preferred to be selective in his criticism,perhaps because of his relationship with former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

A senior BJP leader charged that there was too much focus by the Sena on countering the MNS,which along with the resultant media attention,left it little scope to take on the Congress-NCP led state government. All the anti-incumbency issues were overshadowed by the quarrel between the two brothers, he said,adding that the real issues were swept under the carpet. The BJP must bear in mind that we are an Opposition party. So,the office bearers and leaders must be in a mindset to launch agitations, he said.

This has been our biggest defeat so far, said a Sena worker,pointing to the Sena reaching a stage where the number of its seats had come down to numbers equivalent to its position in 1990,and added that they had gone back by 19 years. He however added that in 1990,the party was upbeat as compared to its present state of despondency.

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He admitted that they had failed to woo voters even in the constituencies where the MNS had not been a major spoiler. While Sena old timers recall how Sena chief Bal Thackeray was a father figure to them,and was accessible to the party cadres,they rue that Uddhav is inaccessible and has tried to infuse a corporate culture in a party known for winning street fights.