Sena opens its arms to media

MUMBAI: Competition, they say, bring in change. And political parties are no exception to it, as has been proved by the Shiv Sena. The 40-year-old party that had always had utter disregard and disdain for the media has for the first time appointed spokespersons to put their need in proper perspective.

With elections round the corner and the competition getting stiffer by the day, the Sena is in no mood to take chances and has ordained former Maharashtra chief minister Manohar Joshi, MLA Subhash Desai and Neelam Gorhe and Sanjay Raut, MP and the editor of party mouthpiece Saamna, as its spokespersons.

The move is significant since the Sena was never known for being media-friendly, if not media-savvy. In fact, many Sena leaders till the other day were happy wearing their anti-media attitude. Some of them even have been booked for attacking newspersons on different occasions.

The Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray’s strong dislike, or selective liking, for reporters had percolated down to the bottom. His son and the Sena’s working president, Uddhav Thackeray, too, followed in his father’s footsteps and is known for keeping newspersons waiting for hours.

However, the recent exodus of leaders, including Raj Thackeray and Narayan Rane along with eight MLAs, seems to have forced the Sena leadership to do a rethink vis-à-vis the media. Having taken considerable drubbing in the past few elections, the Sena is now looking forward to building bridges with media organisations.

So much so that it also announced weekly press briefings on every Monday, something totally unheard of in the Sena circuit. And the change is not restricted only to appointments.

In their new avatar, these four spokespersons on Monday hinted at a change in Sena’s strategy as well. “We are not against north Indians,” proclaimed Mr Joshi. He went on to suggest that the Sena actually may field some north Indians in the forthcoming municipal elections, the only caveat being it should find “suitable candidates”.

This apparent change in its stance has come a few days after the Sena chief Bal Thackeray criticised policy-makers for allowing unrestricted flow of migrants to Mumbai. The Sena has been a vocal critic of influx of north Indians and Bangladeshi Muslims to Mumbai.

The change in its attitude seems to have stemmed from the fact that many constituencies in Mumbai have a sizeable population of non-Marathi speaking people which may ultimately prove decisive in the final electoral outcome. It’s this votebank that deprived the Sena of a major victory in Mumbai constituencies in the past Assembly elections.