Who Will Win The Mahayuddh?

In Maharashtra's Most Complex Political War Ever, Shifting Alliances Fuel A Gripping Saga Of Power Struggles And Betrayals In The Pursuit Of Votes

- DHAVAL S. KULKARNI

Jamlelya deshbhakta bandhawano, bhaginino aani maatano..." The words ring out from a stage in Solapur, the textile town once known as the Manchester of Maharashtra. Rendered in English "All my patriotic brothers, sisters and mothers gathered here"-it has all the grandiose air of one who has come to bury a Caesar, albeit in a different way. The speaker is a tall, lanky, bespectacled man-rather more bookish-looking than his flamboyant father. Uddhav Thackeray's chosen form of address too is a departure from what orators from his stable have deployed over the years: the usual Shiv Sena invocation is to 'Hindus. It's not just that Solapur has a significant Muslim population. The adjustment in vocabulary is in sync with the 180-degree turn Maharashtra's politics has undergone over the past five years. Here, in the state's southeastern interior, 430 km away from the city where the party's writ was once law, the soft-spoken Uddhav is campaigning for a Congress candidate. The Solapur Lok Sabha seat is reserved for the Scheduled Castes, and Uddhav warns of the rumoured danger to the Constitution. Bal Thackeray's son is defending a legacy, but decidedly from the other side.