Thackeray Jr. Holds A Roadshow

IMAGE: Rajan Vichare polled 740,969 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, defeating the Nationalist Congress Party's Anand Paranjpe by 412,145 votes.
Anand Paranjpe's late father Prakash Paranjpe had won the Thane seat four times (1996, 1998, 1999, 2004).
After his father's death, Anand won the Thane by-election.
He switched parties before the 2014 Lok Sabha election, but lost the Kalyan seat, which he had won in 2009, to Dr Shrikant Shinde, the future Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde's son. All photographs: ANI Photo

IMAGE: In the 2014 election, Vichare defeated sitting NCP MP Sanjeev Naik by 281,299 votes. The seat is considered a Shiv Sena bastion, but how the 2022 split in the party will affect Vichare's electoral prospects will be interesting to watch since Eknath Shinde's power centre is Thane.

IMAGE: Only once has the Shiv Sena lost the Thane seat since 1996 when the NCP's Sanjeev Naik surprised the undivided Shiv Sena's Vijay Chaugule in the 2009 election, winning by 49,020 votes.

IMAGE: The largest turnout in Thane was seen in 2004 when 1,313,252 electors came out to vote. That contest was close: Prakash Paranjpe polled 631,414 votes to the NCP's Vasant Davkhare's 609,156 votes. The margin of victory: 22,258 votes.

IMAGE: Fifteen years later, in 2019, 1,170,970 Thane electors voted. Rajan Vichare's margin of victory was 412,145 votes, an increase from his 281,299 margin in 2014.

IMAGE: Rambhau Mhalgi, a member of the RSS and Jan Sangh, twice represented Thane in the Lok Sabha as a member of the Janata Party, in 1977 and 1980 though he didn't complete his second term. After his death in 1982, the BJP established the Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, a centre to train leaders, headquartered in Bhayander, Thane district.

IMAGE: The SS (UBT) was the first to announce its candidate -- a no brainer really given Rajan Vichare's electoral record in Thane.
The Mahayuti alliance -- the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP -- have not yet declared their candidate as yet.
Interestingly, the Mahayuti candidate for the Kalyan seat -- the Thane constituency was bifurcated into Thane and Kalyan in 2008 -- has not been announced though Dr Srikant Shinde has twice been elected from the borough.

IMAGE: Of the six assembly constituencies that comprise the Thane Lok Sabha seat, four are with the BJP and two with the Shiv Sena.