Mumbai, Mar 18 (NIE): The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has decided not to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. This is the first time since the party’s inception in 2006 that the party has decided to refrain from contesting parliamentary elections in the state. MNS leader Shirish Sawant issued a statement in this regard on Sunday.
Thackeray will, however, hold a slew of rallies, including one on March 19 where he is likely to voice his support for the NCP.
The party has been slowly losing popularity in the state with its vote share declining and an exodus of party leaders.
In a bid to engineer a split in the Sena’s traditional vote bank in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and Nashik, the NCP’s state leadership had earlier harboured a plan to offer Thackeray’s outfit the Kalyan Lok Sabha seat from its quota. But there was intense opposition from the Congress on accommodating MNS in the alliance.
With Congress, the biggest Opposition party, expressing strong reservations over the inclusion of Thackeray’s outfit in the alliance, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP had to shed the plan to accommodate Thackeray’s outfit from its quota of seats.
The electoral performance of MNS has also not been impressive over the last few elections. MNS, which was set up in 2006, had made its debut in 2009 as an unrecognised registered party. It managed to receive 4.07 per cent of the total votes polled in the state in the 2009 Lok Sabha election. It further created political space for itself winning 13 seats and received 5.71 per cent of the total votes that were polled in the 2009 elections. Based on its performance the party was recognised as a state party. However since then things have been going downhill for the party.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections the party saw its votes dip by nearly 50 per cent and it got only 1.5 per cent of the total votes. In the recently held Assembly elections the party got only 16.6 lakh votes which was 3.1 per cent of the total votes. It had managed to get only one candidate elected in this elections.
A day after the Lok Sabha polls were announced, the lone Maharashtra MNS legislator Sharad Sonawane had also joined the Shiv Sena in presence of party president Uddhav Thackeray.