A debilitating split in the party, a recalibration of political affiliations, and a series of legal reverses. Things haven’t been going well for Uddhav Thackeray since his party man Eknath Shinde walked out of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government with 39 other MLAs and joined hands with the BJP in June 2022. Not only did it bring Thackeray’s two-and-a-half-year chief ministership to an abrupt end, but it also left him and his faction—the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) or Sena (UBT)—with little to bank on except the sympathy vote of the Marathi manoos and the possibility of gaining a foothold among the minorities.
