Raj Thackeray takes on Modi govt's achievements, one at a time

With the election season at its peak in India, the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in Maharashtra is now faced with an unprecedented threat—Raj Thackeray. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief, whose party is not contesting in the current Lok Sabha elections, is busy conducting rallies and campaigns targeting the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre. 

Raj Thackeray can be seen rubbishing the achivements of the Modi government with 'proofs', one at a time, at these rallies that have attracted large crowds over the past few days. At a rally last week, Raj Thackeray exposed the conditions of Harisal, a village in Maharashtra that was showcased in the Modi government's advertisements as the first digital village in the country. In the video that was displayed to the public, residents of Harisal could be seen complaining about the mockery that the digital equipment delivered to them have become due to lack of infrastructure. Furthermore, one of the residents who posed as a model for the government advert, currently claims to have not received any of the benefits of Digital India and remains unemployed. 

Similarly, on Tuesday, Raj Thackeray received wide appreciation on social media for bringing on the stage an entire family whose photo was used by the BJP to spread propaganda without the family’s knowledge. “Why don’t you check for yourself? Look at the family on stage and look at the photo next to that of Modi’s. These people had no clue that they are featured in this BJP ad,” he said, addressing the crowd.

Raj Thackeray has not spared other key reforms and schemes of the Modi government, including demonetisation, GST and Mudra Yojana. At one of the rallies, the MNS supremo could be seen comparing PM Modi to Adolph Hitler. He claimed that 4.5 crore people lost jobs due to demonetisation and GST. "All the channels have been gagged, newspapers have been muffled," Raj claimed. 

Raj Thackeray has also raised questions about the Mudra Yojana scheme. He used a video by a portal called HW to allege that the downpayments for Mudra loans were going to an Ahmedabad-based private company named CapitaWorld Platform Pvt Ltd.

Across all the rallies, Raj Thackeray has been appealing to people to vote against the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP and the Sena are accusing the MNS chief of doing the bidding of the Congress and the NCP.

While the sudden mass appeal of Raj Thackeray has left the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in Maharashtra in an unprecedented situation, there were reports that authorities had denied permission to Raj Thackeray for conducting a rally in Mumbai. However, the poll authorities later gave the permission.

All six Lok Sabha constituencies of Mumbai go to polls on April 29.