Thackeray enmity revives: Raj taunts cousin Uddhav after Maharashtra govt collapses, says decline begins

AT a time when the party of his cousin Uddhav Thackeray has faced a serious crisis which could even leave it split, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Thursday (30) rubbing salt into the wound saying “therein begins the journey towards… decline”.

Raj, who left the Sena in the early 2000s to float his own outfit after Sena founder Bal Thackeray appointed his son Uddhav as his successor, emerged as one of the main competitors of the original party in Maharashtra politics. Even though he has not been able to mobilise voters the way the Sena has done in the state, yet the firebrand Raj is still seen as one who carries the true legacy of Bal Thackeray, thanks to their similar hardline politics.

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Raj, who recently had a hip replacement, tweeted the day after Uddhav resigned as the chief minister of Maharashtra following an implosion in his party that left the state’s MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi or Maharashtra Development Front) coalition government in disarray. He said, “When anyone misunderstands one's good fortune as one's personal accomplishment, therein begins the journey towards one's decline.” He tweeted it in Marathi, English and Hindi languages.

Uddhav Thackeray resigns as Maharashtra chief minister

Raj’s father Shrikant Thackeray was a younger brother of Bal Thackeray and despite his fiery political style which made many think that he would be the natural successor to the patriarch, a mild-mannered Uddhav was prioritized over him which left Raj disappointed and he left the family-led Sena to make his own MNS.

That was in 2005.

Raj was seen maintaining a low profile during the current drama that unfolded in Maharashtra over the rebellion in the Sena. But his tweet showed that the firebrand leader has still not made peace with his estranged cousin.

But post the crisis that saw the MVA government collapsing, Raj’s claim to become the undisputed Hindutva-Maratha leader of Maharashtra is expected to come under challenge from Eknath Shinde, the Sena leader who led the rebels against Uddhav.

With municipal elections lined up this year and the state and national elections in 2024, it will be interesting to see how many ways Hindutva politics discovers in Maharashtra with multiple players now set to challenge each other towards emerging the undisputed king of the state’s politics.