Thackeray camp sets out to win war of perception against Shinde-BJP

Down but not out, Uddhav Thackeray seems to have taken a leaf out of his bete noire Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) book to make himself heard – by managing the electorate’s perception. In order to win the game, he has deployed all available platforms to say his piece – from the party journal ‘Saamana’ to social media; also throwing in his combative MP Sanjay Raut for good measure.

While Uddhav is dignified in his defeat, his son Aaditya is leading the charge on social media, while Raut is laying out a barrage of accusations, not all of them substantiated.

Raut’s attack includes allegation that the Shinde camp had “purchased the Sena name and symbol for ₹2000 crore”. On Tuesday, he said the opposing faction had ostensibly prepared a rate card to poach former corporators and shakha pramukhas from the Uddhav Thackeray camp. “Earlier, they used to offer ₹50 crore to an MLA but now they are ready to pay ₹1 crore to a former corporator and ₹50 lakh to a shakha pramukh,” he claimed.

Not out of breath yet, he then alleged that chief minister Eknath Shinde’s son, MP Shrikant Shinde, had issued a contract to kill him. “I have received many threat calls from ruling party MLAs and their goons. Today I learnt from my sources that MP Shrikant Shinde has assigned Raja Thakur, a gangster from Thane, to kill me. Though I am an MP, and executive editor of ‘Saamana’, and a Sena (UBT) leader, I think it is my responsibility to inform you about this,” Raut said in his letter to deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis and the Thane police commissioner, which he also shared on social media.

Raut’s action led Fadnavis to retort: “Is he (Raut) making such statements to seek police security or create sensation?” Shiv Sena spokesperson Sheetal Mhatre added, “Does he have proof of the allegations? Why does he not file a police complaint?”

An editorial in ‘Saamana’ called out BJP for its “hypocrisy over the beef ban”. The article underscored how the ruling party at the Centre, “played politics over beef in the states where it is not in power while it supports eating beef in Goa and north-eastern states where the party is in power”.

The Thackeray camp’s social media is monitored by MLA Aditya Thackeray and MP and spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi; the latter is very active on the new media. The Thackerays have appointed 288 social media coodinators in the state, one for every assembly constituency. In Mumbai there is a coordinator for each of the 277 shakhas. A central team watches over the collective work. While earlier, only those in the top echelon posted on Twitter regularly, today, it has trickled down to the office bearers as well, with many sharing their pictures with Thackeray in a show of allegiance.

Parts of Uddhav Thackeray’s recent critiques of Shinde were turned into graphics, tweeted and retweeted. Likewise, pictures of Aaditya Thackeray visiting a site of a pipeline burst in Worli was tweeted with laudatory captions.

“These days when the politics of narrative is gaining importance it becomes necessary to take the correct information to people. Timely intervention by uploading facts and sharing truth can control the false narrative and misinformation,” said Chaturvedi.