Aaditya Thackeray is the son of Uddhav Thackeray, leader of the Shiv Sena, and grandson of Bal Thackeray. He is currently the President of Yuva Sena, a youth wing of the Shiv Sena. Aaditya is trying hard to create his existence in state politics. His major achievement is that he belongs to the Thackeray family and that is his merit too as a post bearer in the party.
A few years back, when Nitish Kumar and RJD formed the government and Lalu Prasad Yadav‘s son was given the portfolio of the Deputy CM, we all trolled them to death on social media until he resigns. I think in Maharashtra too we are going to repeat the similar incidence.
The Assembly elections are due in three months from now and 29-year-old Aaditya Thackeray is being pushed by the Shiv Sena as its nominee for the Deputy CM’s chair. Speculations about this started after Aaditya’s meeting with Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis. Fadnavis recently talked about its “equitable sharing power and posts” with Sena and accepted his willingness to offer Deputy CM position to Aaditya.
However, the irony is that Shiv Sena has the best of grassroot-level leaders who made this party and their experience matters the most but the son of Uddhav is getting the chance to be at the peak of the power corridors. He needs to learn a lot and also needs to work a lot for the party. Balasaheb gave a ready seat and legacy to his son Uddhav and he is now making the way for his son. Aaditya Thackeray represents the future of the party that is gripped by many crises.
The hope is held out for Marathi-speaking people when it was launched in 1966 has acquired sepia tones but has not been fulfilled. Sena-BJP alliance was in turbulence, but both are aware of the fact that if they part, they have no future in the state. To make it to power, even if they like or dislike, they have no other choice than contesting together. After 30 years of playing elder brother in an alliance with the then-fledgling Bharatiya Janata Party, the national party unbalanced off the relationship last year and established an equation in which the Sena was uncomfortably playing the second fiddle.
After Balasaheb Thackrey, Uddhav somehow maintained and sustained the ties with the alliance but he lost his credibility as an individual. In such crises, 29-year-old Aadtiya Thackeray, the fourth generation in Prabodhankar Thackeray‘s lineage, is being portrayed as the poster boy of the Shiv Sena. There is a battalion of PR agencies campaigning for him day and night.
Alike former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Aaditya also sports stubble and spectacles. After Rahul, Priyanka too has joined active politics on the national level. In Maharashtra, the third generation of the Pawar family is preparing to enter the politics with Ajit Pawar‘s son Parth likely to be given a candidature.
Young faces from the next generation are taking over the political landscape. The only difference is that neither Balasaheb nor Uddhav and Raj contested the elections ever and they always remained the remote controls of their political party but this time, for a chance, Aaditya Thackrey may come in the battleground by contesting elections. There were also talks around him being projected as future CM candidate of Maharashtra.
Thackeray scion has been active in politics for around a decade. Though he started off with Yuva Sena, he had been primarily busy with steering the affairs of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) over past two years after Shiv Sena was able to hold its bastion with a wafer-thin margin in a bitter battle against the BJP. Aaditya had also attracted controversies for his insistence for an open nightlife culture in Mumbai and foot-path gyms in the city. The imported Penguins housed in a special pavilion at Byculla Zoo were also his baby. He also focused on sectors like education, environment, and social work, where he can directly engage with the youth.
However, whether he would be able to give the necessary fillip to the party organisation making it able to gain the power in the state on its own is still a question. Moreover, the Thackeray family’s avowed stance of not contesting public elections too is likely to be a hurdle for him. Not contesting the election was kind of inevitable for Balasaheb and Uddhav. Aaditya is young. Health and age are on his side unlike that of his father and grandfather.
Shiv Sena, long known for its conservative political and social outlook while being in opposition, has always garnered headlines for ‘Sanskaari’ moral policing – like vandalising public property over Valentine’s Day celebrations for instance.
Aaditya, however, came with a fresh set of ideas, targeting the young voters, completely contradicting the general perception of the party for decades. The young Thackeray bud certainly seems to be focusing on issues of a different colour than the ones the old Shiv Sena paid much attention to. On the day of Aaditya’s elevation, party chief Uddhav Thackeray made the announcement that the party would be going national in 2019 ‘for the sake of Hindutva‘. Is this simply the Shiv Sena’s way of courting young/urban voters with a more progressive face, while holding onto the core Hindutva and Marathi vote bank?
Aaditya too has nothing to lose and everything to gain. He does not have to worry about the party’s poll prospects as it is being taken care of by his father and Sena supremo Uddhav under the guidance of his grandfather Bal Thackeray. Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray is playing his cards close to his chest when it comes to an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While a desperate BJP has surrendered to the Shiv Sena to join hands for the Hindutva cause, Thackeray has his eye on something else. Uddhav would be more interested in seeing his son in active politics and one at the peak of power in this alliance bargain.
Most of all, as Shiv Sena completes more than five decades, its leadership has not been able to offer its cadres a sustaining vision beyond a progamme of hate that has constantly created new enemies over the decades to suit the prevailing political climate. Uddhav has been caricatured for most of his political life. Some of his father’s sound political advisors are not with him, some he maneuvered out of the party, and others left calling the mild-mannered man unflattering names.
Despite this, the Shiv Sena seems a diminished party in its influence and impact; its tiger roar has perceptibly muted. However, still, what the Shiv Sena has in its favour is stupendous organisational strength, a network of cadres that rises to any emergency as swiftly as it does to every call for action and a cult-like loyalty to Bal Thackeray that Uddhav frequently taps into. In many parts of rural Maharashtra, it continues to be the main opposition to the Congress. Now, the most interesting thing would be the young cub of Thackeray’s; will he roar like Balasaheb or stay muted like father, that time has to decide.
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