Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Friday said that party chief Uddhav Thackeray’s son Aditya Thackeray has the capability to lead the outfit, which he claimed remains strong despite suffering two splits in four years.
Raut called for the “next generation” to gradually take over the party and hailed junior Thackeray as the potential next leader.
“For how many years will we continue to work? We have been working for 40 years. Young leaders must take command of the party, and he (Aaditya) has been doing it. He will do it officially too; he has the capability, and we will welcome him,” Raut told news agency PTI ahead of party chief Uddhav Thackeray’s planned tour of the constituencies represented by the six party MPs who recently joined the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
Sanjay Raut alleged that the six rebel MPs switched loyalties only for money, power and protection. The leaders who left the Uddhav Thackeray-led party were not “rebels” in the real sense of the term, Raut said, arguing that the word should be reserved for freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh, and not used for politicians.
Uddhav Thackeray’s tour was part of an outreach to directly explain the party’s position to voters and workers in the constituencies of the MPs who defected, said Raut.
Two splits in four years
Six of nine Lok Sabha MPs of Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) submitted a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker earlier this month to form a separate group, and to eventually merge with Maharashtra deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena to back the BJP-led NDA regime of PM Narendra Modi.
This is the second major fracture in Bal Thackeray’s original Sena in four years.
Eknath Shinde, who orchestrated the first split in 2022, had been in touch with the rebel MPs and assured them of full support, and his son and MP Shrikant Shinde played a key role in coordinating discussions in Delhi, it was learnt.
The MPs who were the part of the second split are Sanjay Jadhav (MP from Parbhani), Bhausaheb Wakchaure (Shirdi), Sanjay Deshmukh (Yavatmal-Washim), Nagesh Patil Ashtikar (Hingoli), Sanjay Dina Patil (Mumbai North East) and Omraje Nimbalkar (Dharashiv). Arvind Sawant, Anil Desai and Rajabhau Waje, along with Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut, remained publicly in the Thackeray fold.
Uddhav Thackeray, in his first comments on the impending split, rejected the rebels’ stated rationale that they feared a Congress merger, asserting that the Shiv Sena was not born to merge with anyone. “It was created to fight for the rights of Marathi people and protect Hindutva,” he told party workers.
He then took a dig at the Centre’s ruling BJP. “I fear the Maharashtra BJP might merge with the Shinde Sena,” he said.
After the 2022 split, 40 of 56 Shiv Sena MLAs sided with Shinde and 16 with Thackeray, while in the Lok Sabha 13 of 18 MPs joined the Shinde camp and five remained with Uddhav. Both claimed to be heirs to Bal Thackeray’s political legacy, with Uddhav stressing he is from the bloodline and Shinde saying he has held the ideological line.
Thackeray rebuilt from that five-MP base. Contesting with a new name ‘Shiva Sena (UBT)’ and a flaming torch as symbol after the Election Commission handed Shinde the name and the bow-and-arrow in February 2023, Team Uddhav won nine seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It was seen as a creditable performance for a stripped-down party.
The November 2024 Maharashtra assembly polls were harsher, though. Shiva Sena (UBT) won just 20 of 95 seats it contested, against Shinde’s Sena’s 57 wins from 87. January 2026 completed the rout, with the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance winning the BMC elections decisively, ending the Thackeray clan’s hold on India’s richest civic body. Each electoral cycle eroded the organisation further, until the parliamentary floor gave way too.
The rebellions in Shiv Sena over the years
The current rebellion is the sharpest in a line over the years. The first serious challenge to Bal Thackeray’s authority came in 1991, when senior leader Chhagan Bhujbal walked out with 17 MLAs to join Sharad Pawar’s camp, later serving as minister and deputy CM in Congress-NCP governments. After that also came Narayan Rane’s expulsion and departure in 2005.
But Bal Thackeray held the organisation together until his death in November 2012. His nephew Raj Thackeray had already left in 2005 to form his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena after son Uddhav was given the party’s heirship. Uddhav’s son Aaditya emerged as the youth wing leader of the Sena later.
Raj and Uddhav reunited recently for an alliance as politics has shifted fast in Maharashtra in recent years.
