MUMBAI:

chief

is being projected as a chief ministerial candidate these days, a political push that is no surprise given the deal struck between the

and the BJP before the Lok Sabha election.

The Shiv Sena confidence comes from the BJP assurance of 50:50 seat-sharing in the assembly polls, due in September-October, at the time of alliance talks prior to the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year.

As the deal ensures the same starting position for the Shiv Sena as the BJP in the race for the most seats, the cub from the Thackeray clan has a fighting chance of making it to the chief minister’s chair.

The young Thackeray and the party are already hard at work. To begin with, a series of rallies called the Jan Ashirwad Yatra, or a journey to thank the public for the Lok Sabha result, is planned for him by way of a soft launch of his candidature.

The party is getting him to deliver speeches at these public meetings in the hinterland — good practice for an aspiring

. After all, the party plans to have the Yuva Sena chief hold his own at his poll campaigns, without the crutch of more experienced speakers who may end up diverting attention away from him.

On Friday, the junior Thackeray was in Dhule and interacted with the youth. Addressing voters, he said he envisioned a “new Maharashtra” that would be pollution-free, debtfree, unemploymentfree and drought-free. He asked women and farmers to join his endeavour.

BJP politicians said that they were not perturbed by their ally trying to prop up Aaditya as its CM candidate and that at the end of the day it would depend on which party won more seats. As of now, the BJP is confident of winning more seats than the Shiv Sena.

The confidence stems from the fact that in the 2014 polls, when all parties had contested independently, the BJP won 122 seats and the Shiv Sena only 63 of the total 288 assembly seats.