By stunning everyone with his intra-party putsch and by forming the government with Devendra Fadnavis’ BJP with his rebel faction of 50 MLAs, Eknath Shinde caused Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena faction to lie prostrate. Mr. Thackeray struggled to control the exodus within his party, with 12 of the 19 Sena Lok Sabha MPs moving over to the Shinde camp. But Aaditya Thackeray has risen to the occasion. His cadre outreach campaign, the ‘Shiv Samvad Yatra’, has drawn a groundswell of support from the party rank and file across Maharashtra. As both rival factions slug it out in the Supreme Court over control of the party, the younger Thackeray has been making efforts not just to challenge the 50 rebel MLAs of the Shinde camp, but to expand the Sena well beyond its traditional pockets of Mumbai, Thane, Konkan and a part of Marathwada.
Party grapevine is that while he is being groomed as the next working president of the Sena, his brother, Tejas Thackeray, will be assigned a formidable role soon. Already, there is clamour from the young Shiv Sainiks to make Mr. Tejas Thackeray the Yuva Sena chief. Sena founder Bal Thackeray had referred to the youngest Thackeray as having taken after him, with his “sharp brains” and “aggressive spirit.” Recently, Mr. Uddhav Thackeray’s confidante Milind Narvekar referred to Mr. Tejas Thackeray as the “Viv Richards of the Sena”.
The Shinde camp’s revolt has created a vacuum which Mr. Aaditya Thackeray hopes to exploit by giving youthful faces a chance in the constituencies held by the rebel Sena MLAs. A wide field of opportunity has opened with many youths already being appointed to responsible positions in many taluks. His rallies, particularly in Mumbai, Thane, Aurangabad and the Konkan, saw an overwhelming turnout, with a large number of young Sainiks vowing to ‘topple’ the rebel MLAs in future elections. In fact, even in Pune, where the Sena has a nominal presence, a massive crowd smashed the car of a rebel Sena leader, Uday Samant, as a sign that the old Sena aggression was alive and kicking.
