Posters urging Uddhav, Raj Thackeray to join hands put up in Mumbai amid NCP crisis

Maharashtra Navnirnam Sena (MNS) workers have put up posters in Mumbai urging their party president Raj Thackeray and his bitter rival cousin and Shiv Sena (UBT) supremo Uddhav Thackeray to join hands amid the frequent realignments in state politics. In a video shared by news agency ANI, a poster urging Thackeray cousins to come together can be seen outside a petrol pump at Ram Ganesh Gadkari Chowk in Dadar West.

“Politics of Maharashtra has become muddy," the poster put up by MNS leader Laxman Patil reads, in an apparent reference to the rampant defections, first in Shiv Sena and now in Nationalist Congress Party.

The poster further adds, "Rajsaheb-Uddhavsaheb come together now. Entire Maharashtra is waiting for you - an earnest request of a Maharashtrian soldier with folded hands.”

The friction between Raj and Uddhav aggravated in 2005 when Raj, who was once seen as Sena founder Bal Thackeray’s heir, deserted the saffron outfit following a cold war between them and formed his own party the next year. He squarely blamed Uddhav and his coterie for this desertion, saying he was being marginalised from the party and was being utilised just for campaigning.

Uddhav became Sena chief in January 2013 following Bal Thackeray's demise and remained at the helm of the party before Eknath Shinde broke ranks and formed the government with the BJP.

On Sunday, Raj Thackeray expressed anguish over the latest political development in his home state, saying “what is standing in front of the country is the mud of Maharashtra's politics.”

“Since the rest of the people of Maharashtra are sure that they are selfish, will all these games for the throne of power continue like this or will the people of Maharashtra stop this disgusting politics of power in the coming elections?” he said in a tweet in Marathi.