Shiv Sena's 'liberal' turn under Uddhav Thackeray yields good results for MVA in Maharashtra

Till five years ago, Uddhav Thackeray appeared to be a reluctant and diffident politician carrying the burden of his father Bal Thackeray’s legacy, but he reinvented himself and his party after severing ties with old ally BJP and throwing his lot with the Congress and NCP.

Under his leadership, the Shiv Sena transformed from an aggressive party espousing Hindutva into a liberal political outfit wooing Muslims, Dalits and non-Maharashtrians.

During his two-and-half-year stint as Maharashtra chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray’s detractors mocked him as a ‘work from home’ CM, but he succeeded in establishing a connect with the people through Facebook live sessions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet, he faced a rebellion by Eknath Shinde in June 2022, and announced his resignation in another Facebook live session without facing a trust vote in the assembly, a decision that drew criticism.

But after losing the chief minister’s post, and also the party name and electoral symbol (which were awarded to the Shinde-led faction), Thackeray bounced back, capitalising on the sympathy wave for him.

The Shiv Sena (UBT) head soon emerged as the face of the opposition’s Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which also includes the Congress and Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP).

Once criticised for not stepping out of his house in Mumbai’s Bandra area, Uddhav Thackeray criss-crossed the state in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, and his rallies attracted huge crowds.

In the seat-sharing deal with the allies, he had his way and got the largest chunk of 21 out of 48 seats in Maharashtra.

Uddhav Thackeray’s party managed to win three of the four seats in Mumbai but lost Raigad, Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, Thane and Kalyan.

In Mumbai, he proved the Shiv Sena cadre was still with him, but the same could not be said of the rest of the Konkan region.

Even as the opposition’s INDIA grouping, of which his Shiv Sena (UBT) is a part, put up an impressive performance in the Lok Sabha elections, a bigger and perhaps more crucial test for Thackeray would be the assembly elections in Maharashtra due later this year.

The MVA on Tuesday won 30 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.

The Congress won 13 seats, a quantum jump from the solitary seat it won in the state in 2019, while the Shiv Sena (UBT) won nine and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) got eight seats.

The BJP and allies got 17 seats.