Ahead of the 2019 assembly elections, few would have thought that Uddhav Thackeray had the potential to break ties with old ally BJP and head an unlikely alliance with NCP and Congress to become the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
Two and a half years later, the 62-year-old Thackeray’s innings as chief minister came to an end when a senior Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde revolted against him and most of the Shiv Sena MLAs joined the rebel camp.
Whatever I do, whether I want to or not…. I do it with determination, Thackeray said during his Facebook Live on June 22.
This determination has been a constant throughout his political career, which has seen the Shiv Sena fluctuate since taking over as the acting president and party chief for the first time after the death of his father Bal Thackeray in 2012.
Bal Thackeray’s youngest son, Uddhav, also known as ‘Digga’, started helping his father with party affairs in the early 1990s. A soft-spoken and quiet politician, he was promoted to the post of working party president in 2001 over his younger cousin Raj Thackeray, who was considered more charismatic.
This rise led to a split in the party. Senior leader and former Chief Minister Narayan Rane resigned in 2005, followed by Raj. But through these storms, the Shiv Sena managed to win the crucial Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Thane Municipal Corporation elections in 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017.
When Bal Thackeray died in 2012, many critics of the party predicted that this would be the end of the Shiv Sena. But Uddhav Thackeray managed to hold the party together, and led its transformation from its earlier incarnation into a mature political organization as a party of street fighters.
Known to be an ace wildlife photographer, he also ventured into aerial photography. Some photographs of forts in Maharashtra, taken by him, adorn the walls of New Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi. In 2014, when the Shiv Sena and the BJP parted ways to contest elections independently, Thackeray led his party’s campaign to emerge as the second largest party in the state assembly after the BJP. But later Shiv Sena again joined hands with BJP as the government was formed later.
In 2019, the two parties split over the chief minister’s post and Shiv Sena joined hands with Congress and NCP. Thackeray became the chief minister of this tripartite alliance, which many had predicted would break very soon.
He was also the first person from the Thackeray family to hold a public office. His leadership in the worst of times coronavirus The pandemic came to acclaim. But a section of Shiv Sena leaders complained that he did not have access as party president and chief minister.
Many Shiv Sena leaders were also uncomfortable with the party’s alliance with arch-rivals Congress and NCP, which ultimately proved to be a ruin of the alliance.
Thackeray had recently said that he was never interested in becoming the chief minister.
I told Pawar sahib (NCP chief Sharad Pawar) that I go to BMC to congratulate the mayor (after the mayoral election). During a Facebook Live on June 22, a day after Shinde’s rebellion, he asked how can I become the chief minister. It will be interesting to see if Thackeray now succeeds in reviving the fortunes of his weakened party. ,
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