Aaditya hits the road to reconnect with cadre

While Aaditya Thackeray launched a three-day tour of the state on Thursday to connect with party cadres, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray is expected to follow suit soon.

After the disappointment of losing power in the government and also most of their party leaders to Eknath Shinde’s rebellion, the Thackerays are now picking themselves up and hitting the roads once again. While Aaditya Thackeray launched a three-day tour of the state on Thursday to connect with party cadres, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray is expected to follow suit soon.

Shiv Sena workers welcome Aaditya Thackeray at Anand Nagar Check Naka while on his way to address a gathering of Shiv Sainiks during his Shiv Samvad Yatra at Shahapur, in Thane (Praful Gangurde/HT Photo)

The outreach programme is also being seen as an attempt by the Thackerays to counter charges of being distant and inaccessible to the cadre as well as to tap into the latent sympathy in party sympathisers over the way the Thackeray-led MVA government was toppled.

On Thursday, Yuva Sena chief Aaditya began his ‘Shiv Samvad Yatra’ from Thane district, the epicenter of the rebellion engineered by Shinde on June 20. In a show of strength at Bhiwandi, from where the ‘yatra’ began, Aaditya attacked the Shinde- Devendra Fadnavis regime, and claimed that it would fall soon. Incidentally, out of the 12 Shiv Sena corporators from Bhiwandi, none were present at the rally.

On his way to Bhiwandi from Thane, Aaditya stopped for a minute outside Shinde’s bungalow in Louiswadi and greeted some of his supporters before moving ahead. He said, “Whoever we trusted and gave ministerial post stabbed us in the back. These are not rebels or revolutionaries as they call themselves. These are merely back-stabbers. Those who left were never Shiv Sainiks. The hundreds of people who have gathered here are the real Sainiks.”

Apart from Shinde, 39 Shiv Sena MLAs have rebelled against Uddhav, leaving him with just 15 legislators. “Our priority now is to reach out to party workers and ensure that while the legislators may have deserted us, these activists stay on with the Shiv Sena,” said a senior Shiv Sena leader. He added that Uddhav will also launch his own tour of the state soon. “This outreach will pick up after the rains subside,” the leader added.

Later in the day, Aaditya also held programs at Shahapur, Kasara, Igatpuri and Nashik. On Friday, Aaditya is expected to address Shiv Sena and Yuva Sena functionaries and workers in Manmad, Vaijapur, Yeola and Aurangabad (Sambhajinagar), and on Saturday, he will hold meetings at Paithan and Nevasa and later move to the temple-town of Shirdi, where the first phase of the campaign will come to an end.

The focus on Nashik and Aurangabad is important for the party. The Shiv Sena had a strong presence in Nashik district, and Aurangabad was where the party set up roots outside the Mumbai-Thane region in the late 1980s, riding largely on communal polarisation and the social animosity between the Marathas and the Dalits after the decision to rename the Marathwada University after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.

After the MVA government was toppled, Aaditya had launched his ‘Nishtha Yatra’ in Mumbai, in which he had visited Shiv Sena shakhas across the city. A Sena worker noted that in order to keep the remaining flock together, the Thackerays needed to go down to the masses. “They must not confine themselves to visiting just the shakhas, but also chawls and slums to reach out to their core voter. They must also reach out to the people in the villages to strike a chord with them,” he said.