After being denied entry in the mega-alliance initiated by Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) announced that it will not contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in April this year.
For the first time since its inception, MNS won’t field its candidate for the 2019 LS polls. MNS leader Shirish Sawant issued a statement saying, “we will talk more on March 19”. Despite MNS’ clarification to not contest the LS elections, party chief Raj Thackeray might not stop his political campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Earlier, there were strong speculations in the political circle that MNS may join the mega-alliance. However, after the NCP declared its first list of candidates on March 14 and named Babaji Balram Patil from Kalyan LS seat, the decision taken by MNS comes with no surprise.
In the political circle, there were discussions that the NCP is interested to give LS seat to MNS. While Congress had earlier strongly opined that MNS cannot be a part of the mega-alliance due to ideological issues.
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Earlier in the 2014 state assembly elections, the MNS managed to get hold of only one seat. However, on March 11, the only MNS MLA from Junnar constituency in Pune, Sharad Sonawane joined Shiv Sena.
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