MUMBAI: Shiv Sena (UBT) scion and party chief Uddhav Thackeray’s son Aaditya Thackeray retained Worli assembly constituency but saw a major dip in margin, down from the massive margin of 67,427 in 2019 state election to 8,801. His victory will bring little cheer to Shiv Sena (UBT) amid the washout the party faced in the rest of the state.
Aaditya, at 63,324 votes, defeated Shiv Sena’s Milind Deora (54,523), and MNS’s Sandeep Deshpande (19,367) in Worli, one of the high-profile seats in the city that saw three-way fights.In neighbouring Mahim, his cousin Amit Thackeray from MNS lost.
“I thank the people of Worli for keeping confidence in me. I also thank police and other machinery,” Aaditya said. Speaking on his party’s drubbing in the state, he said, “The results in Maharashtra are surprising. It is the same state that gave us wins in Lok Sabha. We have to see whether this election was decided by the people or EVMs. The results are not as expected, so we need to discuss the technical issues. We will talk about it later.”
Meanwhile, Deora, a Rajya Sabha MP who lost from the seat, said, “Key takeaways from Mumbai: CM Eknath Shinde ji has proven his leadership and vision for Maharashtra. Voters chose ‘progress without speed limits’ over ‘speed breaker’ politics. The real gaddari (betrayal) was in 2019, not 2022. Hope always triumphs over fear!”
Taking to X, he said, “I took on Sena (UBT)’s strongest team in Worli-1 ex-CM, 1 ex-Cabinet Minister, 1 ex-Union Minister, 1 MP, 1 MLA, 2 MLCs & 3 ex-Mayors. Despite MNS splitting 19,367 of Mahayuti’s votes, we led at one point and cut Aaditya Thackeray’s margin to 8,801 from 67,427 in 2019. ‘Climate Change Minister’ asking for ballot papers is truly ironic!”
Both Deora and Aaditya had roped in star power for campaign. While CM Shinde and his son Shrikant campaigned for Deora, Telangana CM Revanth Reddy was among those campaigning for Aaditya.
In 2019 assembly polls, Aaditya, the first member from Thackeray family to contest an election, defeated his NCP rival Suresh Mane by almost 70,000 votes. However, in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Sena (UBT) candidate Arvind Sawant got a lead of only 6,715 votes from Worli assembly constituency.
In 2022, after the MVA govt was toppled, Aaditya had written a letter to the residents of Worli. In the letter, he took a veiled dig at BJP, saying that after his constituency made enviable progress, all parties wanted to come to Worli.