The Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde are set to engage in another display of their political influence through Dussehra rallies in Mumbai on Tuesday.
Since the split of the Shiv Sena in June last year, the Shiv Sena (UBT) led by Uddhav Thackeray and the Shinde group, which retained the party name and symbol, have been locked in a battle to assert themselves as the rightful successors to the legacy of the party's founder, Bal Thackeray.
While Uddhav Thackeray will address his party’s Dussehra rally at the sprawling Shivaji Park in Dadar, the traditional venue of the event where Bal Thackeray charged up his workers with his fiery oratory for more than four decades, Shinde’s rally will be at Azad Maidan in south Mumbai.
Like last year, there was initially some confusion on who would get the nod to conduct the rally at Shivaji Park. The two rallies also assume significance as Lok Sabha elections are just a few months away, while civic polls in several cities, including Mumbai, are pending since early 2022.
In the run-up to the rallies, the Thackeray faction has released several video clips of Bal Thackeray’s speeches, especially those highlighting action that needs to be taken against defectors. These have been widely shared by Shiv Sena (UBT) workers. The Shinde group’s teasers about its rally, on the other hand, have Bal Thackeray’s speeches where he has robustly espoused the cause of Hindutva.
While the Uddhav Thackeray group has consistently called members of the Shinde faction as traitors, the latter claims the former chief minister broke the alliance with the BJP and joined hands with the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party after forsaking Hindutva.