Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS) is facing an existential crisis after the party's disastrous performance in the recently concluded Maharashtra Assembly Elections. MNS, which contested in 125 seats and won none, may even soon lose its railway engine symbol.
As per the norms of the Election Commission of India, a party that fails to secure at least six per cent of the total votes polled in the general election to the LS or the legislative assembly of the state will be derecognised. Such parties are simply declared as registered-unrecognised parties.
Since MNS failed to clear the criteria, the ECI will likely send a notice for de-recognition and revoke the party symbol. According to former principal secretary of state legislature Anant Kalse, the MNS can’t now claim the party’s symbol as it did not win a single seat and will have to choose from free symbols allotted to independents by ECI.
MNS spokesperson Sandeep Deshpande said the party is looking into the matter. "We will consult our legal team," he said on the impending symbol loss.
In the 2019 elections, the MNS had won Kalyan Rural but the sitting MLA Pramod (Raju) Patil lost to Shinde Sena's Rajesh More by 66,396 votes. The party's performance was so disastrous that Raj's son Amit Thackeray ended up third in Mahim in his debut electoral politics. He contested against sitting MLA Shiv Sena (Shinde) candidate Sada Sarvankar and Sena (UBT) candidate Mahesh Sawant who won by a margin of 1,316 votes.
Political analysts have panned Amit's debacle, stating the MNS launched him without any groundwork or preparation, which ended in a humiliation for both Raj and Amit Thackeray.
The party's performance has been coming down after each election. In its first political battle in the 2009 Assembly elections, MNS contested 143 seats, winning 13. In both 2014 and 2019, it won only one seat each. The vote share was 5.71 per cent in 2009. It fell to 3.15 per cent in 2014 and 2.25 per cent in 2019. This time, it was a mere 1.55 per cent.
The party decided to contest in the 2024 Assembly elections alone, opting not to repeat its Lok Sabha strategy of supporting the Mahayuti.
The MNS candidates, however, became a decisive factor in determining the winners in Mumbai, inadvertently helping Shiv Sena (UBT). The Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Sena won 8 of the 10 seats in Mumbai. Of the total 20 seats across the state, 10 wont by Sena (UBT) were decided by margins smaller than the votes secured by MNS candidates.
