A day after Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar and Raj Thackeray held election meetings, almost around the same time in the city, political pundits were left scratching their heads in confusion as it was the young Thackeray who proved to be the biggest crowd puller.

While nobody is betting that this will hold a direct correlation with the voting pattern, on Friday the Shiv Sena was hard-pressed to try and ensure that a decent number gathered for Uddhav’s rally, scheduled at the same venue as his cousin a day before.

While the Congress men in the city had to work hard to hold back crowd for six hours for Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s public meeting, Raj Thackeray’s three public meetings at three different places in the city witnessed mammoth gathering without any special efforts. On the other hand, Pawar’s public meetings saw a moderate gathering.

Workers of all parties were busy discussing the Raj phenomenon and the ways to tackle it on Friday. The busiest lot among them were Shiv Sainiks, as Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray will hold a meeting at the same place in Kothrud on Sunday where his cousin pulled a mammoth crowd on Thursday.

“We are working out ways to manage the crowd. The biggest challenge is the timing of the meeting. It is scheduled at 2.30 pm,” said a senior Sena leader.

He admitted that crowd gathered at Raj Thackeray’s public meeting — despite two other big public meetings — taking place had sent some jitters in the party. “We have now planned to meet some influential people who can bring good votes for our party candidates,” he said.

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