As Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray buried their two decades-old hatchet and announced an electoral alliance between the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) for the local body polls in the State on Wednesday (December 24, 2025), they offered analogies from the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, the battle which had given birth to Shiv Sena in the 1960s on the plank of Marathi manoos (sons of the soil).
Through the reunion, the Thackeray cousins are looking to capitalise on the emotive appeal of the ‘Thackeray brand’ for Marathi manoos. But will it lead to easy gains?
Reunion or reunification?
When the Marathi manoos of Mumbai had felt disenfranchised, the struggle had led to the deaths of 106 persons who had fought for Mumbai to be included with Maharashtra. It was from the discontent and anger of the citizens seeking rights of its own city that the Shiv Sena was born in the 1960s. For decades thereafter, the Marathi manoos stood firmly with Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray and the party to give it complete control over Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which is the richest municipal corporation in the country.
On Wednesday, the Thackeray cousins invoked their grandfather and social reformer ‘Prabodhankar’ Thackeray along with their respective fathers, to emphasise on the lineage of the family that had fought for the Marathi manoos, stressing on how this was under threat again.
