Socialist groups, Shiv Sena-UBT to hold first interaction on Sunday

Mumbai, Oct 13 Shiv Sena-UBT President and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will have his first major interaction with top socialist leaders comprising the Samajwadi Janata Parivar on October 15, a party official said here on Friday.

The meeting, initiated by Janata Dal-U General Secretary and MLC Kapil Patil, is expected to have around 150 representatives from 21 political parties, unions and mass movements in the state participating.

Major socialist parties and the Maha Vikas Aghadi allies Shiv Sena-UBT, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party are also part of the national Opposition parties’ INDIA bloc.

The meeting will comprise the followers of socialist stalwarts like the late Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, Jaiprakah Narayan, S. M. Joshi, Sane Guruji besides intellectuals, writers, social justice activists and media personalities.

"In the past, there was an ideological harmony between Keshav Sitaram alias Prabodhankar Thackeray, the grandfather of Uddhav Thackeray, and even Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray enjoyed a great rapport with many Socialist leaders like George Fernandes, despite their political differences," said an official.

In fact, in 1968, the fledgling Shiv Sena, founded in June 1966, had even entered into an alliance for the BMC elections then, but both sides are non-committal if such an arrangement could be repeated in the upcoming civic elections in the state.

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