Aaditya first from Thackeray family to contest elections

In 1998 when Aaditya Thackeray was an eight-year-old, his grandfather Bal Thackeray, in an interview to the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana, slammed environmentalists as “mafiosis” obstructing the growth of Maharashtra.
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More than two decades later, as he lays the ground for his own electoral debut, Aaditya Thackeray, the Shiv Sena heir apparent, has seized on environmental issues, to stake out an identity for himself as a “woke” champion of socially progressive values.

While Aaditya’s opposition and concern about the felling of 2,700 trees in Aarey to make way for a car shed carries a certain resonance, the junior Thackeray is also an able practitioner of his grandfather’s style of parochial right-wing politics.

“I love politics since childhood as I used to tour with my grandfather and father. Whenever my friends and others questioned me asking what else I can do apart from politics, I told them I can’t do anything else but only politics. We have always seen politics for doing social work and served the people. To do something new, politics is the only medium that can change the lives of crores of people,” said Aaditya while addressing a gathering of party activists in Worli on Monday evening.