A boy holds up a poster of Raj Thackeray in Mumbai on Sunday. (PTI)

Mumbai, Nov. 27: Raj Thackeray today quit all his posts in the Shiv Sena, accusing cousin Uddhav of sidelining him and regretting the day he had suggested the name of Bal Thackeray’s son for party executive president.

“I think I shot myself in the foot there,” the Sena stalwart’s nephew told a simmering crowd of supporters, who erupted into violence now and again.

As Bal Thackeray hurriedly sent Sanjay Raut, executive editor of party newspaper Saamna, as emissary, Raj’s supporters stoned his car and tried to smash the windscreen, prompting police to be called in. They also attacked the office of the party’s labour front, whose office-bearers are believed to be close to Uddhav.

An anxious Bal Thackeray called a late-night emergency meeting at his residence, Matoshree.

Raj’s announcement that he was quitting the party executive committee and as chief of the Sena’s student wing was staged almost like a coup.

When he started out in the morning from Shirdi, the pilgrim centre about 300 km from Mumbai, there were 15 SUVs following him. As he neared Mumbai, crowds greeted him at roadsides and junctions. By the time he reached the city around 1.30 pm, there were 50-odd vehicles in a triumphant motorcade that rolled towards his home in Dadar, where a sea of people waited to greet him.

Raj was supposed to go to Matoshree to discuss his problems but he chose to address a news conference at his home straight away.

He announced his resignation from party bodies but said he would not join another party or split the Sena.

Raj poured scorn on Sena leader-turned-Maharashtra Congress spokesman Sanjay Nirupam’s invitation to him to join the Congress. “What authority (haisiyat) does he have to make me the offer?”

Raj said his quarrel was not with his uncle or the party. Calling the current leaders “middlemen”, he said that since the party was being led by these men, he had to quit as its office-bearer.

Later in the evening, Uddhav addressed a news conference. He struck a placatory note saying Raj could resign from posts but not from relationships and that the Sena would like to give him a second chance. He added that his cousin was supposed to visit Matoshree on Sunday; the day was not over yet.

Uddhav suggested Raj was being manipulated by Narayan Rane, the rebel Sena leader who had joined the Congress and wrested from his former party its stronghold of Malwan during the recent bypolls.

Uddhav said that if Raj wanted to prove his strength, he should have done it in Malwan for the Sena.