 "Clueless in defeat, Uddhav may struggle to keep decimated flock together")
Uddhav Thackeray, who played the bold gambit of taking on the ally BJP in 2019 and forged an unlikely alliance with the Congress and NCP, was on Saturday left struggling to make sense of his party's rout in the Maharashtra assembly elections.
Thackeray, whose Shiv Sena (UBT) won only 20 out of the 95 seats it contested, admitted that he could not understand how the electorate which had inflicted a drubbing on the ruling BJP-led alliance in the Lok Sabha elections only five months ago changed its mind.
From the shy son of a charismatic and firebrand Hindutva politician, the late Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, Uddhav has come a long way. Early on, he survived challenges from party stalwart Narayan Rane and cousin Raj Thackeray, and went on to become the Maharashtra chief minister in November 2019 when he ended the decades-long alliance with the BJP after the assembly elections.
Soon, the Covid-19 pandemic followed, and Uddhav easily connected with the people during that difficult period as he addressed them directly by using social media tools such as Facebook live. He came across as an affable leader who could reassure people.
While his leadership during the pandemic won him praise, Uddhav Thackeray remained clueless about the simmering discontent in a big section of the party which resented the alliance with the Congress and NCP, erstwhile ideological foes. Eknath Shinde's rebellion in June 2022 seemed to have taken him by surprise, leading to the fall of his government and a vertical split in the party.
Uddhav, however, did not waver, and kept attacking the BJP, its top leadership including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and launched a tirade against the "traitors" who sided with Shinde.
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His party contested 21 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha elections, highest among the Maha Vikas Aghadi allies, but won a modest nine. He was then criticised for his adamant stand during the seat-sharing talks.
He has also been accused of being less accessible, a charge the MLAs who rebelled against him in 2022 levelled. They also took jibes at him for working from home during his tenure as chief minister, and even his ally Sharad Pawar commented on it.
On the plus side, Thackeray gained support of the sections of society, including Muslims and Dalits, which were earlier uncomfortable with the Shiv Sena.
Over the years, he also developed oratory skills. His style is different from that of his father's fiery speeches, but he is equally acerbic towards his opponents.
As the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP alliance won a landslide victory on Saturday, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde noted that the results settled the issue whom does the Shiv Sena belong.
The challenge before 64-year-old Uddhav Thackeray, as he and his son Aaditya pick up the pieces after the rout, will be to hold on to the remaining party leaders and cadres, and prove that the Sena led by Shinde -- which has already got the official name and election symbol of Bal Thackeray's party -- is not the real thing.
He will also have to answer the question whether his decision to join hands with the 'secular' Congress and Sharad Pawar-led NCP was a wise move.