Uddhav Thackeray Fall in Line with his MPs, to Support NDA Presidential Candidate
NEW DELHI, July 12: Giving in to the pressures from the majority of his Members of Parliament, the Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday announced that the Shiv Sena led by him will support the NDA’ presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu. The decision comes a day after 16 of the party’s 22 MPs told Thackeray to support her “because she is a woman from a tribal community.”
Thackeray apparently had little option but to accept the demands of his MPs to save the Parliamentary party from splitting because his Sena is already stunted after Eknath Shinde broke away last month and replaced him as Chief Minister of Maharashtra with the BJP’s support. But Ms Murmu’s tribal identity is a factor — something Mr Thackeray latched on to as a face saving device.
“Tribal leaders of my party told me that this is the first time a tribal woman has a chance to become President of India,” he said, insisting, “Nobody pressured me in the meeting of Sena MPs.”
“Actually, going by the present political atmosphere, I should not have backed her,” he said, “But we are not narrow-minded.”
If elected — which is all but done as the NDA has the numbers — Ms Murmu will be the first tribal woman to occupy the country’s highest office. That matters in Maharashtra, where nearly 10 per cent of the population is of Scheduled Tribes. And that’s been a vote bank for the Sena.
That’s why, despite Mr Thackeray’s dislike for the BJP — and even before Eknath Shinde’s mutiny — when Ms Murmu’s name was announced last month, it was expected that the Shiv Sena would switch its loyalties away from “joint opposition” candidate Yashwant Sinha.
Thackeray faction Shiv Sena spokesman Sanjay Raut had clarified earlier that supporting Ms Murmu would “not mean supporting BJP.”
(Manas Dasgupta)
