Shiv Sena parivar excited over cousins’ meet

NEW DELHI: The recent meeting between Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray has shown the potential to become the starting point for an emotional reunion between the estranged Thackeray cousins. The Sena Parivar is already discussing whether it could lead to the two parties taking baby steps towards coming closer after years of bitterness, according to sources.

The meeting between the Thackeray cousins on July 29 was the result of behind-the-scene legwork involving interlocutors from both sides. Sources said that even after the personal and political ties between the cousins had turned sour, Raj had always made it a point to send a bouquet of flowers to Uddhav for each of his birthday but the meeting on July 29 was not an impulsive act of the MNS chief.

There was groundwork was done before Raj personally rang up Uddhav on July 27 to extend his birthday greetings, sources said.

During the telephonic chat, Raj asked his cousin whether they could meet. The meeting happened two days later when Raj visited Matoshree, his first since Bal Thackeray’s death. “The meeting was held in a very warm and cordial fashion. Of course, politics figured in the meeting. There are possibility of more meetings between the two,” a source said.

The timing of the meeting between the two cousins is politically significant.

The Sena’s relation with ally BJP is fast turning bitter in Delhi and Mumbai. On the other side, the political graph of MNS has hit the nadir too. The question in political circles, especially in the larger Sena Parivar, is whether the political requirement of the Sena to assert itself vis-à-vis uneasy ally BJP, and MNS’ compulsion to revive its momentum, could lead to the estranged Sena siblings coming together, especially in the run up to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections scheduled for early next year.

Given Sena’s critical importance to maintain the grip on the BMC, without yielding space to the bargaining BJP, the prospects of a tie-up with MNS could open new areas for political positioning. Apart from the need to manage egos of the two cousins, Sena also needs to resist in-house hawks who have been leading poaching operations ever since Raj’s party suffered desertions.

But encouraged by the “promising meeting” at Matoshree and “underling the political compulsions of both sides”, sources are emboldened not to rule out the Sena-MNS drawing closer in the run up to the BMC polls. If that happens, it would mark a significant churning in the larger politics of Maharashtra.