Headlines
'Prince Aditya Thackeray' emerges from the shadows on 25th birthday
By
By Quaid NajmiMumbai, June 13
It was not just any political
celebrity's birthday bash. The gathering on Saturday in Matoshree - the
traditional residence of the Thackerays, Maharashtra's numero uno
political family - conveyed a clear message of the growing clout of the
birthday boy.
Aditya Thackeray, the elder son of Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, was virtually anointed the party's crown prince.
More
than an estimated 5,000 people gathered at Matoshree in Bandra East to
meet and greet the beaming Aditya, standing beside his smiling parents,
Uddhav and Rashmi and brother Tejas.
Among the visitors were top
party leaders from Mumbai and other parts of the state, ministers,
legislators and MPs, all jostling to ensure Aditya mentally registers
their presence!
The cool, rainy and breezy ambience was suddenly
shattered around noon when several hundred Muslims, attired in Pathan
suits, dancing and playing huge drums, turned up to greet the 'prince'
at the Matoshree gates.
"My members and leaders came from all
over Maharashtra to wish Aditya on his 25th birthday... The music and
dancing was our way of conveying our love for him," Haji Arafat Shaikh,
president of the Shiv Vahatuk Sena (SVS), the Muslim face of Shiv Sena,
who led the musical procession to Matoshree, told IANS.
Later,
the visitors were treated to a lavish spread of lipsmacking vegetarian
and non-vegetarian biryani, pedhas, barfis and sweetmeats besides other
tasty cuisine for which they hungrily awaited their turn in snaky
queues.
Earlier, the SVS organised a 'chadar' laying ceremony and
distributing sweets at the Haji Ali dargah in Worli, followed by a
special 'maha-aarti' at the famed Siddhi Vinayak Temple in Dadar before
proceeding to greet Aditya.
SVS activists fed beggars at the
Mahim dargah, and in Chembur and Pune, distributed laddoos to people in
Shirdi, launched a year-long autorickshaw training scheme for women in
Thane, and similar other celebratory programmes in 16 districts across
Maharashtra, Shaikh said.
Aditya came into prominence five years
ago when, under the tutelage of his grandfather, the late Shiv Sena
founder Bal Thackeray, he launched and headed the Yuva Sena, the young
wing of the party.
He took up several high profile issues and
agitations for the youth and students and gradually started building up a
political profile for himself, especially after his father suffered
some heart problems since 2012.
Around the 2014 Lok Sabha and
assembly elections in the state, on several occasions, he represented
his father in crucial negotiations with the blowing-hot-and-cold ally,
Bharatiya Janata Party, much to the chagrin of some of its leaders,
besides campaingning in the state.
In the past few months,
apparently in preparations for the ensuing crucial elections to the
BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Aditya has been burning the
midnight oil, travelling across the city to ensure proper roads and
cleanliness for an event-free monsoon.
A few months ago, he
propounded unshackling Mumbai's night-life -- which suffered after the
March 1993 serial bomb blasts -- to make it a 24x7 metro, at par with
other cities like London, New York, Dubai et al.
A former senior
leader of Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, Shaikh unabashedly
calls Thackeray junior 'Prince Aditya' and "undoubtedly, the future
leader of Shiv Sena".
(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at [email protected])