Mumbai: In Aaditya’s Worli, are Sainiks slipping out of Thackerays’ fingers?

There seems to be a lack of enthusiasm among Sainiks from Worli to pledge loyalty to the Shiv Sena constitution and the party chief. Till last week, the party had failed to collect even 25 per cent of the aimed number as part of the drive in the high-profile and crucial constituency. This came to notice last week when party chief Uddhav Thackeray held a meeting with corporators. Leaders have cited shortage of stamp paper in the market as a reason behind the low response. Aaditya Thackeray, who represents the constituency, has started to connect with the party rank and file as part of damage control exercise.

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Yuva Sena president and former minister Aaditya Thackeray, who represents Worli, has started to get in touch with party members from the constituency. File pic

The Uddhav Sena is expecting every constituency from Mumbai to submit nearly 12,000 such affidavits, and many constituencies have already met 50 per cent of the target.

The drive

The drive started after Sena president and former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray directed party office-bearers to get 50 lakh members to submit affidavits pledging loyalty to the party's constitution and the current party chief. This came after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's faction approached the Election Commission to recognise them as the real Shiv Sena.

Why Worli is crucial

Worli constituency is close to Sena's heart as it is represented by Yuva Sena chief and former environment minister Aaditya Thackeray. Besides Thackeray Jr, Sena has two MLCs - Sunil Shinde and Sachin Ahir - and 7 corporators from the constituency. In October 2019, Thackeray Jr contested from this seat and won, becoming the first member of Thackeray clan to contest and win elections. While few in the party circles believed that "too many cooks spoil the broth" as the reason for the slow progress, local leadership refuted the charges.

Former mayor Kishori Pednekar, who heads the Worli segment of the party's women's wing, told mid-day, "On behalf of the women's wing, I have collected 7,000 affidavits from this constituency." Abhijit Patil, up-vibhag adhikari, Yuva Sena, claimed that they are not behind the curve and cited non-availability of stamp papers as the reason for the lesser collection, and told mid-day, "Now that stamp papers are available, we have completed the process. Only submission of these documents to the leadership is pending and it will be done soon."

Senior leaders roped in

Aware that a poor show in Worli would send wrong signals across the state, especially ahead of the crucial BMC polls, local party leadership immediately swung into action. "Senior leaders are taking stock of the situation. Now everything looks to be in place," a senior party functionary said.

Though the party has not revealed specific data of the affidavits collected from each constituency, it is said that average affidavit collection is pegged at over 5,000 while that hovers around 3,000 in Worli.

07
No. of Sena corporators from Worli