Ratnagiri burns, but Uddhav Thackeray missing from action

The Shiv Sena on Tuesday faced acute embarrassment over queries on the whereabouts of its executive president Uddhav Thackeray even as Ratnagiri observed a violent shutdown called by the party against the Jaitapur nuclear power project.

The Shiv Sena on Tuesday faced acute embarrassment over queries on the whereabouts of its executive president Uddhav Thackeray even as Ratnagiri observed a violent shutdown called by the party against the Jaitapur nuclear power project.

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Thackeray, accompanied his son Aditya and an aide has gone on a holiday to Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh for pursuing his favourite hobby, photography.

The Thackeray father-son duo and Uddhav's aide Milind Narvekar boarded a Mumbai-Nagpur flight on Tuesday morning to go to Kanha.

When spotted by some television crew members in Nagpur, Thackeray reportedly snubbed them and shooed them off.

However, his party leaders found it difficult to field queries by the media and politicians in Mumbai.

For instance, Nationalist Congress Party leader Jitendra Awhad said that while his party activists were holding a Ratnagiri shutdown, their leader was holidaying.

"Where is Uddhav Thackeray" was the question several Congress and NCP legislators were heard asking in the corridors of the state legislature in the afternoon after a raging debate on the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project.

Sena's Subhas Desai put up a brave face and quipped to some: "I do not know... I am here!"

Incidentally, the Sena has been at the forefront of the anti-JNPP agitation since the past few months.

The 9,900-MW JNPP envisages six nuclear power reactors to be set up with French collaboration at Jaitapur, in the picturesque coastal district of Ratnagiri, famous for its Alphonso mangoes and cashew nuts.