Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Saturday said there has been a "radical change" in his party which was once known for its aggressive `sons-of-the-soil' politics.

The former Maharashtra minister was speaking at a job fair organised by the Shiv Sena faction led by his father Uddhav Thackeray here.

“There has been a radical change in the Shiv Sena which used to launch agitations for the rights of the sons of the soil....now we organise job fairs to address the issues of the sons of the soil, especially the youth,” the 32-year-old MLA from Worli said.

A new and stronger Shiv Sena was in the making as youths were becoming part of it, the Thackeray family scion added. The coalition government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Eknath Shinde-led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena has done nothing for Maharashtra other than dividing people, Aaditya Thackeray said.

This "government of gaddars" (traitors) will collapse in the next two months, he claimed.

Thane, notably, is the home turf of Chief Minister Shinde, whose rebellion led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in June 2022. Shinde then tied up with the BJP to form the government.

Of the 55 Sena MLAs, 40 are with the Shinde camp, while 12 of the party’s 18 MPs have deserted the Uddhav Thackeray faction.

“The ones who left us are ‘gaddar’ and those who remained with us are the real Shiv Sainiks,” said Aaditya.

Instead of focussing on unemployment and industries going out of the state, the government is busy settling political scores, he said, daring it to hold civic body elections in Maharashtra.

The Opposition had last year blamed the Shinde government over Maharashtra losing two mega industrial projects – the Vedanta-Foxconn and Tata-Airbus – to Gujarat.

Even after two sessions of the legislature, not a single woman has been included in the Shinde cabinet, Thackeray further said.

He also expressed confidence that local MP Rajan Vichare, who belongs to Sena (UBT), will win the Lok Sabha election again in 2024.

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