E-Paper
A Shiv Sena without the Thackerays
What will the near collapse of the Thackeray clan mean for Maharashtra?
The spectre of the Shiv Sena existing without a Thackeray family member at the helm — a possibility first floated in 2022 after the vertical split in the Sena orchestrated by Maharashtra deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde — appears to be nearing reality. Last week, the entry of six of the nine Members of Parliament from the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) into the Sena was approved by Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla, the latest in a string of setbacks for the Thackeray family after the 2022 split, the collapse of the state government, the drubbing in the assembly polls and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections. Despite some public sympathy for Uddhav Thackeray and the family connect with the Maratha population — the party did well in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and managed to retain its Maratha heartland during the BMC elections — it is clear that the regional party is unable to compete with the financial and administrative advantages that its rivals enjoy.
What will the near collapse of the Thackeray clan — Uddhav’s cousin, Raj, has faded into electoral irrelevance with the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena — mean for Maharashtra? As this newspaper has noted before, the marginalisation of the Thackeray family is tied to fundamental changes in the state’s polity, the loosening grip of the Marathi-speaking population on the electorate, and the unravelling of regional and linguistic politics. Broadly, it mirrors the decline in electoral dividend from such regional rhetoric across India. It is also instructive that the Sena (UBT) mess is coming at the same time that the Nationalist Congress Party and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) are supposedly exploring a merger that might bolster the NDA. For reasons that have little to do with electoral democracy and more with ideology-free politics, Maharashtra is set to remain in the spotlight.
