'Worli me 5 saal dikhe nahi': Shrikant Shinde targets Aaditya Thackeray

Tuesday marked the last day of filing nominations for the Maharashtra Assembly elections, set to be held on November 20 across 288 seats. Aaditya Thackeray will contest from Worli to retain it

Maharashtra Assembly elections: Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s son Shrikant on Tuesday targeted Worli MLA Aaditya Thackeray ahead of the Maharashtra elections and expressed confidence that their candidate Milind Deora would win the polls.

 

“We are contesting the issue of development that has not been done in the last five years. Those who were chosen by the people of Worli are not seen here, and could not even open an office,” Shrikant said at the nomination rally held in Mumbai.

 

Deora, a longtime Congress ally, had quit the party in January to join Shinde’s Shiv Sena.

 

Tuesday marked the last day of filing nominations for the Maharashtra Assembly elections, set to be held on November 20 across 288 seats. Aaditya Thackeray, the youth face of Shiv Sena (Uddhav faction), has been renominated from the Worli seat in central Mumbai, which is home to some of India’s wealthiest residents.

 

Prestige battle for the Uddhav’s Shiv Sena

The upcoming elections will be a prestige battle for the Uddhav’s Shiv Sena, which was ousted from power mid-2022 after Eknath Shinde rebelled against the party, causing a split. Aaditya has endorsed his father Uddhav as the best choice for the CM’s position, if their alliance returns to power.

 

Uddhav faction Shiv Sena is contesting the elections with the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Pawars also had fallout in July 2023, when Ajit Pawar broke away from the party and switched over to the ruling alliance.

 

To counter them, the ruling alliance of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP is also leaving no stone unturned. A win for the ruling ‘Mahayuti’ alliance would symbolise that the public has accepted them, while a victory for the Opposition ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’ would further their legitimacy.

 

Uddhav Thakeray has also based his poll campaign on the narrative highlighting Shinde’s ‘betrayal’. The counting of votes for the election will be done on November 23, alongside Jharkhand.