'He Doesn't Have The Air He Is Raj Thackeray's Son'

'I love to meet people.'
'I love that personal connect when they express their genuine, heartfelt, feelings.'

When a lady, in her late 60s, tells Amit Raj Thackeray that it pains her to see the splintering of Balasaheb Thackeray's Shiv Sena into three groups, Amit Raj Thackeray, the debutant 32-year-old son of MNS founder and president Raj Shrikant Thackeray, empathises with her.

"Balasahebanchya ekach Shiv Seneche teen tukde jhale. He baghun atishay dukh hotay aamha saglyanna (It pains all of us to see the Shiv Sena founded by Balasaheb Thackeray splinter into three parties)," the lady, a resident of Old Prabhadevi, an MNS stronghold by all accounts as per MNS leaders, tells Amit as he campaigns door-to-door.

She has only voted for the Shiv Sena all her life and has seen the party's rise-and-meteoric rise from the year the party was founded in 1966, and then the three-way split over time, perhaps, reflects the sentiments of all Shiv Sainiks above 30 years who have seen the upheavals in the party in the last two decades.

The pain that she feels unbearable now started in 2006 when Raj Thackeray founded the Maharashtra Navirman Sena, over differences with his cousin and Bal Thackeray's youngest son Uddhav's style of functioning and nurturing the undivided Shiv Sena.

She is also referring to the vertical split that the Shiv Sena witnessed in June 2022 when Eknath Shinde and 40 MLAs veered away from the party and formed a government with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

It is against this backdrop and feelings of Shiv Sainiks that Amit has dared to add a new dimension to his campaign preferring to have a personal connect with his voters from the Mahim assembly constituency. This sentiment explains the trilemma faced by those who will vote for the MNS, the Shiv Sena (UBT) and Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena.

"Mala avadta lokanna bhetayla. Tyanchya manatlya, manapasun bhavna vyakt hotana, tyanna aiktana mala ek personal connect milto. Majhya pracharachi padhdhatach tashi aahe. Ya padhatine mala tyanchya bhavna, thyanche problems aani tyanchya ichcha kaltat (I love to meet people. I love that personal connect when they express their genuine, heartfelt feelings. My style of campaigning is totally different. This way I get to know their feelings, their issues and their aspirations)," says Amit amid a visit to a Ganesh temple inside the premises of the building in Old Prabhadevi, namastes, handshakes, a gentle pat on a child's back and brief conversations.

About 100-odd MNS workers, along with a replica of the MNS's election symbol the Railway Engine, await Amit's arrival at Old Prabhadevi when Amit Thackeray arrives in his white Land Cruiser. He is driving the SUV himself, his wife Mitali is seated next to him.

It's an evening meet-and-greet and without wasting much time, Amit, dressed in a white kurta-churidar, he immediately adorns a saffron MNS stole offered by a party worker. He drapes the stole around his shoulders and begins his campaign. A few MNS women workers ask him to seek the blessings of Lord Ganesh at a small temple inside the building premises, from where he is starting his campaign.

He greets bystanders and shopkeepers as he makes his way through a small lane towards the temple. After paying his respects to Ganpati, the god of wisdom and harbinger of good times, Amit and Mitali enter the lift of the A wing of the society. The couple take the lift to the top floor and from there climb down the staircase, ringing every door bell, spending a few seconds with each of the society residents.

"I know I am meeting them for the first time, but the connect is immediate. I try to understand their issues, their feelings. I write a note of the issues my constituency's voters are facing. I will ensure their issues are solved as soon as possible," says Amit when an MNS worker grabs him by his hand and requests him to visit the same Ganesh temple again.

Amit heeds his request without a fuss.

"I love his humility. We all love his humility. It is a big thing to see Amit come and visit us, listen to our pleas, and without much ado heeds our requests," says the MNS worker on whose request Amit visits the temple again.

"We are happy to see him here among us and we will ensure that he wins from this MNS stronghold. He doesn't have the air that he is Raj Thackeray's son. That's what I like most about him," says Usha Gadekar, a resident of the society, who couldn't meet Amit because she has just returned from the market after purchasing vegetables, standing amid MNS supporters.

Interestingly, it is just not Amit who loves to intermingle with people for that personal connect. His wife Mitali accompanies him on his door-to-door campaigns and meet-and-greet people.

"It is only when you meet people do you realise the issues and problems they face in their lives," says Mitali. "Honestly, I feel sad to see how they have to struggle for smallest and most basic needs in their lives. I feel why are these things not being done. This is 2024," says Mitali, the daughter of a well-known bariatric surgeon.

Narrating a conversation that she had with a fisherwoman when Amit campaigned at Mahim's Fisherman's Colony on November 8, she says: "A middle-aged lady said there were not enough lighting outside their homes and also streetlights were not working. Somebody often steals the bulbs outside their homes in their chawls. That leads to more petty thefts. I immediately asked my sahkaris (fellow-workers) to send two electricians and have their lights fixed up."

"We have already sent an application for repair of streetlights because that needs lot of permissions. I left Mahim Koliwada at 2 pm that day and by now the lights must have been fixed."

The Mahim constituency that is home to the famous Shivaji Park, Mahim Koliwada, Shiv Sena (UBT) headquarter -- the Shiv Sena Bhavan, MNS headquarter Rajgad and Raj Thackeray's Shivaji Park home Shiv Tirth, has some 300,000 voters.

"50 per cent per cent of these 300,000 voters only matter on the voting day because this constituency has typically seen 50 per cent voter turnout every election," says MNS's Mahim Vibhag Pramukh (ward president) Yashwant Kiledar.

According to Kiledar the issues of redevelopment of old and dilapidated buildings, drug menace along the Shivai Park stretch, prostitution in and around Mahim, Matunga and Dadar railway station are the main issues that could encourage voters to come out and increase the 50 per cent voter turnout.

"People will vote on these issues at the local level," Kiledar says.

Echoing Raj Thackeray's claim that MNS has 39,000 loyal voters in this constituency he believes that Amit's victory -- despite a tripartite contest against the Shiv Sena's Sadanand (Sada) Sarwankar and the Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Mahesh Sawant -- is a given. "But we are not banking just on numbers and past history. MNS has genuinely nurtured this constituency and worked hard to solve people's "real issues."

The MNS cadres believe that two-time MLA Sada Sarvankar has lost his grip on the constituency. "After June 2022 he has started believing that he is the undisputed leader of Mahim," says a MNS worker accompanying Amit's entourage referring to two-time MLA Sarvankar.

"Just because people voted you twice from this constituency doesn't mean that you will get elected the third time as well," he says.

Family-friend and father-figure for Amit, former Mahim MLA (2009-2014) Niitin Sardesai, who was among the first 13 MNS MLAs to get elected in the 2009 assembly election, is also accompanying Amit this evening.

"Our candidate is 100 per cent better than the other two candidates. We are pretty sure that Amit will win his debut election," says Sardesai as he keeps watches over his ward's door-to-door campaign from a distance.

"It is the time for the youth to enter politics and give a new direction to Maharashtra," he says why the MNS has fielded maximum young candidates this election.

Ask him if people of Mahim will get to see the father-son duo do door-to-door campaigning, he says, "No. Raj saheb is touring across Maharashtra to ensure that the MNS wins as many seats as possible in 2024."

"There will be a street gathering outside Saamana's office in Prabhadevi on November 10 that Raj saheb will be addressing," Sardesai says, referring to the Shiv Sena (UBT) newspaper.

Ask Sardesai about the door-to-door campaign strategy adopted by Amit and he says, "It is what he wanted to do. He believes in engaging directly with his voters. That's his humble style. You don't ask me. You ask any stranger who Amit has met and he will tell you about his humility and calm demeanour."