Nashik, Oct. 12: Fear of three letters stalks migrants in Maharashtra’s industrial belt: MNS.

Mention the alphabets, which expand into Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, and the reaction is a shudder.

“We were really scared though nothing happened to people like me,” says Raviprakash Sonar, recalling the uncertainty north Indian migrants felt when Raj Thackeray’s anti-outsider campaign was at its peak in February last year.

A year and a half later, Sonar fears the xenophobic MNS could actually get a shot at power if elections lead to a hung Assembly and parties are forced to seek Raj’s support.

Nashik’s twin industrial hubs of Satpur and Ambad fall in this constituency. An estimated 10,000 north Indian workers fled MNS violence from the colonies in Shramik Nagar, Ashok Nagar, Shivaji Nagar, and Satpur-Ambad Link Road in February 2008.

The growing influence of the MNS in cities like Nashik worries Sonar. “We all voted in large numbers for the Congress in the Lok Sabha, but now we have realised the politics behind the MNS. The Congress-NCP didn’t take action against MNS activists who perpetrated the violence. Therefore, now we want our own political alternative,” says Sonar.

Sonar, who runs the Uttar Bhartiya Ekta Sewa Sanstha, a community welfare organisation for north Indians, had been banking on the powerful Shiv Sena rebel and Nashik mayor Vinayak Pandey, who had promised to help the migrants in staving off the MNS threat.

With the backing of the migrants, Pandey was tipped to win against the NCP’s Nana Mahale, MNS’ Nitin Bhosale and BJP’s Rahul Aher. North Indians like Sonar had hoped he would be the politician who would serve the interests of their community.

That was not to be. Pandey has since quit the poll fray and declared his support for the NCP’s Mahale. The NCP reportedly promised him another term as mayor and that did the trick, sources said. Pandey’s departure is expected to make the election triangular and help the MNS. “He just ran away from the battlefield,” says a disappointed Sonar.

Sonar, who runs a business of water-proofing buildings for construction companies, feels the MNS agitation against north Indians will have a long term impact on Nashik’s industrialisation. “The construction industry has taken the biggest hit. Some workers who left after the MNS agitation did return but many others migrated to north Indian cities instead of returning to Nashik. If one skilled north Indian mason lost his job, at least four local people working with him lost their livelihoods too,” says Sonar, who witnessed a sharp decline in water-proofing contracts over the last one-and-a-half years.

Prashant D of Nashik’s Property and Builders Association said: “About 50 per cent workers did return to Nashik, but they live in constant fear. Local Marathi workers replaced the labour shortfall, but that has only slowed down projects. Migrants come to make money and would work harder and more sincerely than local labourers who take it easy.”

The MNS anti-migrant stir has a strong resonance in Nashik where Thackeray’s three-year-old party first made small but significant electoral gains. Though it failed to win a single seat in Mumbai and Thane, the MNS bagged 12 in the Nashik municipal elections and six in Pune’s civic polls.

Though the MNS failed to win a single Lok Sabha seat, its Nashik candidate Hemant Godse polled 2.16 lakh votes – the highest among its 12 candidates — and lost to the NCP’s Sameer Bhujbal by a mere 22,000 votes. Raj has addressed eight public meetings in Nashik drawing huge crowds.

In the Assembly elections, the MNS has fielded candidates in nine of the 15 seats in Nashik region, but the party expects at least three of its nominees to win. “We are a small party and we decided to focus on our core areas instead of spreading our resources all over,” says Ajay Chandak, state general secretary of the MNS.

The party expects its Nashik general secretary Vasant Gite, who led the attacks on north Indians and also faced token arrest, to emerge victorious against sitting Congress MLA Shobha Bachao. The Shiv Sena’s sitting MLA Kashinath Mengal, who is the MNS candidate from Igatpuri reserved for Scheduled Tribes, and former MP Shankarao Dhikale from Nashik East are the other two seats which the MNS is expected to win.