THE TIGER ROARS AGAIN

OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS, ESPECIALLY SINCE THE 2019 ASSEMBLY ELECTION, MAHARASHTRA HAS WITNESSED A LOT OF POLITICAL FLUX WITH BOTH THE SHIV SENA AND NCP BREAKING

- Lekha Rattanani

For nearly six decades since he founded the Shiv Sena in 1966, Bal Keshav Thackeray's party has been the noisy epicentre of politics in a state that was traditionally Congress-ruled, controlled by the sugar satraps of Western Maharashtra.

The roaring tiger was synonymous with the Shiv Sena, which quickly morphed from a social outfit seeking jobs for the “Marathi manoos” to a political party championing the Hindu cause. A change from a regional outfit to a communal one, a change from street to state-level player, all worked around the popularity of its founder. The Shiv Sena and its bow-and-arrow symbol awarded in 1989 rode across the state and beyond Maharashtra. But as it divided and splintered, reaching a new low when the Election Commission gave the party’s poll symbol to a faction of the Sena in February 2023, the voice of the tiger receded.

Now, two decades after they parted ways, estranged cousins Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray, son and nephew respectively of Bal Thackeray, have reunited. A joint rally in Worli on July 5 was their first shared platform since 2005. The rally “AwaazMarathicha” or the voice of Marathi was organised to protest the Maharashtra government’s now withdrawn proposal to make Hindi mandatory in primary schools.