Uddhav Thackeray becomes CM: Sena’s ‘reluctant politician’ rises

A struggling political heir to a party chief who battled internal challenges, confidently walked out of a Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition and forged an alliance

A struggling political heir to a party chief who battled internal challenges, confidently walked out of a Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition and forged an alliance with former opponents to become the chief minister of a significant state in India, Uddhav Thackeray, 59, has come a long way.

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Thackeray was perceived to be a ‘reluctant politician’ ever since he entered active politics in 2003. Political analysts and party insiders, however, maintain he is a shrewd politician, with a firm grip over his party. They point out that Thackeray’s move to take up the Constitutional post was to combat the Sena’s identity crisis and expand the base of the party which has remained stagnant for some years now.

Brought up in an atmosphere of social work and politics, Thackeray was groomed to be Bal Thackeray’s political heir, although a little late. Till then, he was more comfortable with wildlife photography than the nitty-gritties of politics. In an interview in 2015, Thackeray had said that leading the Shiv Sena is his duty, while photography is his “oxygen” to keep going. Thackeray’s first brush with politics was in 1985, when the party came to power in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). A graduate from the prestigious JJ Institute of Applied Art, Thackeray used his skills to design the campaign material. Senior Sena leader Subhash Desai, who has seen Thackeray since he was a teenager, said his calculated steps and strategies have brought the Sena to the position it is in today.

Desai said he saw a glimpse of the future leader in Thackeray in 1997, when the Sena faced a tough challenge going into the BMC elections. “Every media house and political analyst had written off the Shiv Sena against a united opposition. At a party meeting at Shanmukhananda Hall in Sion, Thackeray addressed the gathering and told party workers the Sena would win, and if we lost it would be solely his responsibility. It showed his leadership. We emerged victorious in the election,” Desai recalled.

Another senior Sena old-timer, Diwakar Raote, said Thackeray has a different approach towards resolving issues. “Thackeray has dealt with the BJP as politician,” Raote said, referring to the tussle and eventual break-up of the alliance with the BJP. “He has remained silent and has proved to everyone that he can achieve miraculous things.”

As he takes over the reins of Maharashtra, political observers say Thackeray will have to reinvent himself.

Surendra Jondhale, political analyst, said the Sena has been facing identity crisis for a few years now and the move to align with a former opponent could help the party. Prakash Bal, another Mumbai-based political analyst, said, “In politics, assurances are given and seldom kept. If there was an assurance of the post of CM by the BJP, then why was he hell-bent on its implementation? He could have broken away from the BJP in 2014. He had numbers for a hard bargain, but it would have stopped their growth.”

Meanwhile, Jondhale said the Sena was stagnant when it was with the BJP. “It was not a need, but an urgency to reinvent to expand the base of the party. Aligning with the NCP and Congress is an attempt to resolve the identity crisis,” he said.

According to Desai, who was sworn-in with Thackeray and other ministers, Thackeray took a “courageous” step to break away from the saffron alliance. He dismissed that running a three-party government would be a challenge for Thackeray, who has no experience of any Constitutional post.

“Only Uddhavji can lead a coalition government. We have the experience of being in a two-party government, now we will successfully run the three-party government. Uddhavji saw to it that there are no contentious issues in the common minimum programme. The only challenge is to tackle farmers’ crisis and growth of Maharashtra,” Desai said, when asked if dealing with two different parties would be a challenge for Thackeray.

For Thackeray, who brought in an all-inclusive political campaign with ‘Mee Mumbaikar’ in 2003 to give a new tone to the Sena from its hardline Hindutva agenda, will now have to shed the Sena’s core ideology, including the Marathi manoos agenda to fulfill the aspirations of the people of Maharashtra, analysts said.