NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become the target of all other political parties in Maharashtra in a strong campaign targeting him across the state. Ally Shiv Sena is leading the campaign with a ‘common front’ emerging against the Prime Minister with Nationalist Congress party and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena on the same bandwagon.

The Congress party has been a late starter being more consumed with internal political wars with former ally NC, but Congress president Sonia Gandhi is expected to spearhead a shift in the party campaign when she arrives there this week for a quick tour before Maharashtra votes in the Assembly elections on October 15. Following up on her campaign in Haryana, the attack on the Prime Minister is expected to be direct and sharp.

However, the Prime Minister has been put on the defensive by the Shiv Sena which under Uddhav Thackeray has been conducting an intense campaign on ‘Maharashtra pride” as against a Gujarati “takeover.” The MNS has joined this, as has the NCP with some vigour leading a section of the Marathi press to even hint at a possible alliance between the three parties against the BJP. While all still deny it, there is indeed sufficient confirmation that their campaign for these elections is making the same arguments, and as the Prime Minister addresses targeted rallies across the state, the regional parties are also becoming more strident and at one level united against him.

In his campaign speech at Dhule PM Modi sought to rebut the charges by maintaining that “till I am in Delhi I can assure you that no power will be able to break Mumbai and Maharashtra.” And again India is incomplete without Mumbai and Maharashtra. Earlier when he had said that he would not say a word against the Shiv Sena because of his respect for founder Bal Thackeray the Shiv Sena responded through its mouthpiece Saamna, “Modi says that he will not attack the Sena in his speeches as he has respect for Balasaheb Thackeray. We too respect the PM. But when you back-stabbed us merely on the issue of seat sharing, where did that respect disappear then? Did you not think of Balasaheb before breaking the alliance forged on the principles of Hindutva?"The ‘Gujarati’ takeover campaign has reached new heights with the three regional parties making a big issue of it across Maharashtra. Uddhav Thackeray at the public rallies wants to know why only the Gujarati Garba was performed outside the White House. And why US President Barack Obama used Gujarati words to greet PM Modi, when there were other languages spoken in India.

Referring to the Prime Minister’s promise of starting a bullet train from Mumbai to Ahmedabad the Shiv Sena leader asked why this route alone was chosen, why not bullet trains from Mumbai to Chennai, or Kolkata or other state capitals? Another sign of Gujarat’s domination over Maharashtra is the inference.

And he is joined, separately of course by MNS and Raj Thackeray in warning the people that the PM Modi’s interest in Mumbai is limited to making it a Union Territory and separating it from Maharashtra.

The BJP campaign for a separate Vidarbha is being stoutly opposed by the three regional parties to a point where PM Modi has not been able to take up the issue in his campaign speeches. If he does, this will become a major rallying point for the regional parties in all parts of the state with political dividends from Vidarbha also not certain for the BJP, as the region does not seem to be particularly interested in the issue at the moment.

All three parties stung by the PM’s campaign are responding with similar intensity. NCP’s Sharad Pawar is wondering at his public rallies why the Prime Minister of India is addressing state rallies, instead of focusing on the larger task at hand of running the country. The Prime Minister is belittling the institution he holds, Pawar informs the crowds and goes on to join the Sena and MNS in raising the “threat’’ of Gujarati domination.

The Shiv Sena has staked claim to the chief ministership and makes this clear through its campaign across the state, at the rallies and through posters. This is to directly contradict BJP President Amit Shah’s initial claim that the BJP will form the government in the state, that has been subsequently supported by all major leaders of the party including Minister Nitin Gadkari. Uddhav Thackeray supporters have thus, mounted a campaign against this with a Shiv Sena slogan stating “Nizam shahi nahin chalegi” being added to now “Amit Shahi nahi chalegi.”

The BJP president in fact is finding the going tough in Maharashtra particularly with the campaign against Gujarati domination by the three regional parties gathering ground rapidly. Local BJP candidates are now printing posters without Shah’s photograph on these, as both he and PM Modi are from Gujarat and this would confirm the propaganda about Gujarat domination. Shah thus is not in popular demand with the BJP candidates not particularly keen to fly in the face of the anti-Gujarat campaign being whipped up by the Sena, MNS and NCP.

The Congress party that has been drifting rudderless for a while now, doing little more than fighting the NCP, is expected to get a lead from Sonia Gandhi’s rallies across the state. If she targets PM Modi as the others are currently doing, the Congress will in a sense join the almost unanimous anti-Modi campaign that is going to impact on the voters in this five way multi cornered electoral contest. The MNS that had also been low key, has revived according to sources, as a result of joining the Sena led campaign, albeit unofficially.

There are reports in the local media of a telephone call between the two estranged cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray after the alliance between the Shiv Sena and the BJP ended. After this the MNS joined the Shiv Sena in the attack on PM Modi that is going on relentless as it is now a question of survival for all the local parties in the face of the BJP threat to take over the state.