Estranged Thackeray cousins Uddhav and Raj on Friday sought to project unity amid an apparent strain in their alliance following the defection of five newly elected Maharashtra Navnirman Sena corporators to the rival Shiv Sena faction led
by deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde.
The two leaders shared the stage on Friday evening and displayed camaraderie while launching the birth centenary celebrations of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, whose political legacy both claim to represent.
The show of bonhomie came against the backdrop of five newly elected MNS corporators from the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation extending support to the Shinde-led Sena. The move came as a shock to ally Shiv Sena (UBT), headed by Uddhav, which sees Shinde as a “traitor” for splitting the Shiv Sena in 2022 and aligning with the BJP.
Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut had described the defections as “unacceptable” and said a complaint had been lodged with Raj. Raut later claimed that the MNS corporators had switched sides without the approval of their party chief.
Addressing the gathering, Uddhav repeatedly invoked the word “traitor” and asserted that all attempts to finish the Thackerays had failed. He said the Shiv Sena was an ideology rooted in championing the cause of the Marathi people and could never be erased. “The BJP is wrong if it thinks it can finish the Shiv Sena (UBT). The Shiv Sena (UBT) is not a party but an idea,” he said.
Alleging that “money power” had been deployed for the first time during the civic polls, Uddhav said that despite this, the Sena (UBT) had managed to hold its ground.
Raj, in his address, took an oblique swipe at the BJP. “Balasaheb demonstrated the power of Hindus in the country. Hindus began voting as Hindus across the nation. If Balasaheb were alive today and saw this market set up in the name of Hindutva, he would be heartbroken,” the MNS chief said.
Ahead of the event, however, Raj, in a post on X, underlined the need for “flexibility” in politics, arguing that such an approach was practised by his uncle Bal Thackeray — a remark seen as an attempt to justify the defection by his corporators.
“Even when Balasaheb had to take a flexible stand in politics, his love for the Marathi people did not diminish even by a fraction. On the contrary, it only grew stronger. These are the values instilled in us,” Raj said in the post while paying tribute to Bal Thackeray.
More than two decades after their bitter split, the Thackeray cousins had reunited to contest the January 15 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections, along with several other civic polls across Maharashtra. However, the alliance failed to halt the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena combine, which went on to win the country’s richest civic body, ending the Thackeray family’s dominance of nearly three decades since the mid-eighties.
The BJP-Shiv Sena (Shinde) alliance secured 118 seats, while the Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS combine managed only 71 of the total 227 seats in the BMC.
The defeat of their alliance and the defection by the MNS corporators in the adjoining civic body had put a question mark on the continuance of the alliance. The cousins, however, sought to dispel the notion through the optics of the stage. Many had feared that Raj would not turn up for the event but he did.
Opening the proceedings during the birth anniversary celebrations, Raj struck a lighter note, joking about his ill health and wondering whether his doctor had “changed sides”, drawing laughter from the audience. “My family doctor is a Yadav — a Marathi Yadav. I got medicines from him and gave them to Uddhav. He recovered in two days. I took the medicine from him and it has been six days, nothing,” Raj said, coughing as he spoke. “The day before yesterday, I called him and asked, ‘Has my doctor changed sides or what?’,” he added.
“I give my word once again today… even if I have to take a slightly flexible stance at times in this completely transformed political scenario, it will never be for my personal gain or selfishness.”
Ties for ‘development’
The MNS backed the Shiv Sena (Shinde) in the Kalyan-Dombivli civic body only for development and the BJP would also be part of this formation, deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde said on Friday.
“The MNS backed Shiv Sena for development. The party was with us during the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha (polls). They have only backed us for development,” Shinde said. He said Raj had always considered the larger interest, not his personal gain.