Aaditya scores over BJP as Sena youth wing sweeps Mumbai university senate polls

The Aaditya Thackeray-led Yuva Sena defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in the Mumbai University (MU) senate elections on Thursday.

The youth wing of the Sena won all 10 seats in the elections, completely wiping out the BJP’s sister organisation. The win assumes significance given the current political scenario and the strained ties between the Shiv Sena and the BJP.

Thackeray, who celebrated the win with the Yuva Sena cadre at Sena Bhavan, said that the win is a “victory of faith in the Sena”.

Thackeray called the win an “important” one as it was a “fight against the ABVP”. Speaking to reporters at the Sena headquarters, Thackeray said, “While I’m being credited with the win, it is the victory of the entire team, which has been working towards it for the last eight years.”

Earlier in January, the Shiv Sena passed a resolution to contest the 2019 Assembly and Lok Sabha polls alone. Thackeray has taken on the BJP-led state government its policies and decisions. Taking a pro-environment stand, he criticised the government’s decision to house a car depot in Aarey Milk Colony for a Metro rail project. Last year, Thackeray led a protest in Mumbai against the rising inflation and increase fuel prices.

Following the victory on Thursday, Thackeray said that he is confident that as they have increased their tally in the senate elections, the Shiv Sena will double its tally in the Maharashtra Assembly in 2019.

“The students and graduates of Mumbai have shown faith in us. Mumbai had shown trust in us in 2017 (BMC elections) and Maharashtra had put faith in us in 2014. We won 63 seats despite a wave. I am confident that in 2019 (elections) too people will show similar faith, as have proved ourselves to the people,” he said.

Over the last couple of years, Thackeray had been taking up issues related to the youth and concerns of university students, teachers and non-teaching staff. According to political analyst Prakash Bal, this victory would give a boost to Thackeray’s image as a leader. “This will boost Thackeray’s political standing.He has been projected as a yuva neta, but did not have anything concrete to his credit apart from the 24x7 Mumbai-nightlife plan,” said Bal.

He added that the election result is unlikely to change the political equations between the two saffron allies. “Not only in Mumbai, but the ABVP has been defeated by the different students unions in the last two months in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), University of Delhi (DU), Ahmedabad Central University, among others. This seems to be a pattern,” Bal added.

In 2010, Yuva Sena had won eight of the 10 seats in the senate elections. Thackeray said that there was no “anti-incumbency”, and they managed to improve their tally this election. Thackeray has been taking up issues related to the MU, including the delay in the paper assessment last year. He even took a delegation to Maharashtra Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao and demanded the resignation of former MU vice chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh.