Uddhav Thackeray launches ‘Shiv Sampark campaign’ ahead of assembly poll

Mumbai: In preparation for the upcoming assembly elections, Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) has launched the ‘Shiv Sampark campaign 2024’. Thackeray has asked his assembly coordinators to send him a list of names of possible candidates, caste-based equations, and a list of party office bearers of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and other parties in the MVA.

Additionally, as part of the campaign, a Bhagwa Saptah (saffron week), will be observed from August 4 to August 11, to reach out to the voters. During the week, the leaders will review the assembly constituency and send a report to the party headquarters in Mumbai. After receiving reports from all the coordinators, Thackeray will have a meeting to discuss the candidates in each constituency before deciding on the name.

Uddhav and Aaditya Thackeray already started their state tour in the first two weeks of July. Now, Uddhav has ordered all 288 assembly coordinators to undertake the ‘Shiv Sampark campaign 2024’ as presumably, only one and half months remain before the code of conduct for assembly elections is put in place.

During the campaign, Thackeray asked the assembly coordinators to visit the constituency twice with the deputy district chief and tehsil chief. A meeting should be held in each Panchayat Committee block, local Vibhag Pramukh, Shakha pramukh, and attendance of Yuva Sena office bearers would be mandatory.

In this campaign, leaders will have to collect the data about the names of Shakha Pramukh in villages, how many party members were there in each village, how many new voters have registered, how many villages do not have Shakha and when will it be set up?

Besides that, local party leaders have been asked to collect data about the party office bearers of (VBA) led by Prakash Ambedkar and local leaders belonging to other parties in MVA and socio-political organisations like Sambhaji Brigade, etc. Thackeray has also ordered to establish connections with Sarpanch, advocates, doctors, teachers, and promoters of women’s self-help groups.

With the data gathered, the assembly coordinators will discuss the names of possible candidates and prepare a report on the reasons behind the lead received by MVA candidates or the reasons the candidate trailed in that constituency.