The Thackeray family has dominated Maharashtra politics for almost half a century. Two young faces from the Thackeray family, Aditya and Amit, tried their luck in the assembly elections of 2024. Aditya Thackeray won against Worli for the second time, while Amit Thackeray, who contested against Mahim for the first time, came third. The interesting thing is that their uncles played an important role in the electoral results of these two brothers.
Aditya Thackeray could have thanked uncle Raj Thackeray for his victory, while Amit Thackeray could have blamed uncle Uddhav Thackeray for his defeat. Worli and Mahim, once considered the bastion of a united Shiv Sena, had this time become the ground for a three-way contest.
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Aditya Thackeray’s seat, Worli
In Worli, Aditya Thackeray was contesting against veteran Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Milind Deora. Milind Deora, who has considerable influence in the south Mumbai region and is also a former Union minister, was considered by political analysts as a strong candidate for this post.
In 2019, Aditya won the Worli seat with 72.7% votes, but this time the matter was a little different. Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which had not fielded any candidate in 2019, fielded Sandeep Deshpande this time. This ruined Deora’s game.
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Aditya Thackeray won the Worli seat by 8,000 votes. Aditya got 60,606 votes, while Deora could get only 52,198 votes. While Sandeep Deshpande of MNS got 18,858 votes. Had MNS not been in the fray, perhaps the contest between Aditya and Deora could have shown a different result.
Mahim seat result
A three-way fight was also seen in Mahim. Here there was a fight between Shinde faction, Uddhav faction (Shiv Sena UBT) and MNS. Mahesh Sawant of Uddhav group won the elections from this seat. As per the results, Mahesh Sawant got 50213 votes. Sada Sarvankar of the Shinde group got around 48,897 votes, while Amit Thackeray came third. He obtained 33,062 votes and lost the election by about 17,000 votes.
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Had Uddhav Thackeray not fielded his candidate here, Amit Thackeray might have managed to taste victory in his first electoral battle.
This election contest in Maharashtra has shown that no matter what the relationships are in the Thackeray family, their moves in politics directly affect the results. This election must have been full of lessons for both Aditya and Amit.
