In a first, Uddhav Thackeray will not vote for SS (UBT) or BJP nominees in 2024 LS polls

Mumbai, April 22 (IANS) For the first time in over three decades, Maharashtra ex-Chief Minister and Shiv Sena (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray would not vote for a Lok Sabha candidate of his own party or former ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 parliamentary elections.

The LS constituency, Mumbai North Central – and prior to 2008 as the Mumbai North West seat - where the Thackerays’ home 'Matoshri' is situated in Bandra East - has been allotted to the Congress in the seat-sharing among the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies.

Accordingly, in another first, Thackeray and his family would be voting for a new ally, the Congress candidate, as the SS (UBT) is now a key constituent of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance and INDIA bloc.

As per the seat-sharing formula, the SS (UBT) will contest Mumbai South, Mumbai North, Mumbai South Central and Mumbai North East seats, while the Congress will fight Mumbai North and Mumbai North Central, and the Nationalist Congress Party (SP) got no seat in the country’s commercial capital.

The Congress nominees are slated to be announced next week for the two seats it is contesting, including Mumbai North Central comprising the SS (UBT) tiger’s den, from where the undivided party of Balasaheb Thackeray reportedly had an unofficial understanding with the late actor-turned-politician, Sunil Dutt, elected five times to LS.

It may be recalled that from 1989, the (undivided) Shiv Sena and BJP had an alliance in all the parliament and assembly elections, which helped elect its candidates in a majority of the LS seats in Mumbai.

Among them were the sitting two-time MPs - BJP’s Poonam P. Mahajan (Mumbai North Central) and Shiv Sena’s Gajanan Kirtikar (from Mumbai North-West, who is now with the rival Shiv Sena of CM Eknath Shinde).

From 1989, the saffron alliance candidates elected from Mumbai North Central include Vidyadhar Gokhale in 1989, Narayanrao Athawale in 1996, ex-LS Speaker and ex-CM Manohar G. Joshi in 1999 (all Shiv Sena), and lastly Poonam P. Mahajan in 2014 and 2019, when the SS-BJP alliance collapsed.