'Will never part ways': Uddhav Thackeray after reunion with cousin Raj; Sena (UBT)-MNS to contest BMC polls as allies

NEW DELHI: Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday said he and his cousin Raj Thackeray would “never part ways,” days after the previously estranged cousins announced their reunion ahead of the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections and 28 other municipal corporation polls in Maharashtra.

The Thackerays announced their alliance on December 24 last year, almost exactly 20 years after Raj left the then-undivided Shiv Sena to launch the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).




“We have come together after much thought and understanding. Now, we will never part ways and stay united,” Uddhav Thackeray told news agency PTI.

He wondered why people first asked why they weren’t reuniting, and now ask why they have come together.

“Till the time we came together, people used to ask us why we were not reuniting. Now they are asking why we have come together and for how long we will stay together. These things don’t mean much,” the former Maharashtra chief minister said.

Thackeray, an avid photographer, also recalled that his uncle Shrikant—Raj’s father—gave him his first camera.

“I am originally an artist. I am the son of a cartoonist (Sena founder Bal Thackeray). You can buy a work of art, but you can’t buy art. Art has to be in the blood. I am a person who is at home in the arts,” he added.

The polls for the 227-seat Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the civic body of Mumbai, Maharashtra’s capital and India’s foremost financial hub, will be the first BMC elections for Shiv Sena (UBT). As an undivided party, it had controlled the BMC for 25 years, from 1997 to 2022. The BMC is the country's richest civic body.

The Sena suffered a major split in June 2022, when Eknath Shinde broke away to ally with the BJP, leading to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government. The Election Commission recognises the Shinde faction as the “real” Shiv Sena.