india

Updated: Nov 11, 2019 18:35 IST

Aditya Thackeray, the first member of Shiv Sena’s first family to contest elections, has the “potential” and “is a visionary leader”, senior Sena leader Arvind Sawant said on Monday as his party preps to head to Raj Bhavan to stake claim to form the government before its 7.30 pm deadline ends.

Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party has already hinted its support to a Sena-led government but made it clear that a formal decision would only be taken only after its pre-poll alliance partner Congress takes a firm decision. The Congress and the NCP have held separate meetings on supporting the Sena government after Arvind Sawant announced his exit from the central government.

Sawant was the Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, a portfolio considered lightweight at the Centre because of the limited role that the ministry plays. His resignation was a message to the NCP and the Congress that the Shiv Sena was breaking up with the BJP.

The Sena hasn’t explicitly said that it had walked out of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Asked if it had, Sawant appeared to indicate that it had. The ex-minister said that he had resigned and hadn’t received an appointment with the Prime Minister. “You can imagine what this means for the alliance,” he said.

He didn’t respond to questions about Aaditya Thackeray’s role in the government either. Or to the BJP criticism that the Sena’s hardline stand on seeking the chief minister’s chair was designed to keep it warm for the Shiv Sena scion. But Sawant was quick to shower praise on Aaditya Thackeray, who won his debut assembly election from Mumbai’s Worli seat by a margin of over 65,000 votes.

“Aaditya Thackeray has potential. Go to YouTube and check by yourself. What a potential that young boy is having. There is true leadership. He is a visionary leader of the country,” Sawant told news agency ANI when asked about the current political situation in the state.

The 29-year-old Aaditya Thackeray is often projected as the Sena’s presumptive chief minister by its leaders. But when the party had to select the leader of the Sena legislative party, Aadtiya Thackeray was quick to step back and propose the name of Eknath Shinde, the 55-year-old minister in the outgoing BJP-Sena government who had joined the party as a worker in the early 1980s.

Shinde’s elevation was seen as an indication that the junior Thackeray may not immediately assume a role in the new government, then expected to be led by Devendra Fadnavis. It is not clear if the Sena is sticking to this plan or is revisiting Aaditya’s role in a government that his party will lead.