MUMBAI: Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray, whose term as a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) ends in mid-2026, may find it difficult to return to the Upper House, as his party does not have enough strength to get him re-elected. Although Sena (UBT) leaders are keen that Thackeray re-enter the state legislature, the numbers tell a different story, and the party will have to seek help from its Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance partners to make this possible.
Party insiders also revealed that Thackeray himself was not keen to get re-elected as an MLC. He had announced his decision to resign from the position after stepping down as chief minister on June 30, 2022, following the split in the undivided Shiv Sena engineered by Eknath Shinde but later was persuaded to continue. Sources said he rarely attended legislative council proceedings and usually remained in the House for only an hour or two.
At present, the Sena (UBT) has a strength of 20 MLAs while it will require 29 MLAs to secure one MLC seat. The Congress and NCP (SP) have 16 MLAs and 10 MLAs respectively. Together, they can elect only one MLC. The situation in 2019 was completely different when the undivided Shiv Sena alone had 56 seats while its alliance partners, the Congress and the undivided NCP, had 44 and 54 seats respectively.
Speaking to the media on Sunday, Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut indicated that the party would need the support of its MVA partners to ensure Thackeray’s election to the legislative council. “The MVA partners will have to help one another,” he said. “We are three parties and support one another in all elections, including the Rajya Sabha and legislative council polls. Uddhavji has served as the chief minister and needs to return to the council for the sake of the state and the people. We want him to go back to the council.”
Back in November 2019, when the MVA alliance was formed and Thackeray was sworn in as chief minister, he was not a member of either house of the legislature, assembly or council. He was elected unopposed from the council on May 18, 2020, in order to continue in the post of chief minister as per the mandatory provisions of the Constitution.
However, given the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown, his election was not easy. The Election Commission of India (ECI) had postponed all election processes, and the then governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, who had a major tussle going on with Thackeray, had refused to take a call on the state cabinet’s recommendation to appoint Thackeray as MLC from the governor’s quota. Eventually, the Sena (UBT) chief telephoned prime minister Narendra Modi requesting his intervention, following which Koshyari asked the ECI to hold an election for the nine vacant MLC seats. Thackeray was eventually elected unopposed.
Currently, two more Thackerays are members of the state legislature. Thackeray’s son Aaditya is an MLA from the Worli constituency while his wife’s nephew, Varun Sardesai, is an MLA from Bandra East.