The rival Shiv Senas led by Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will on Thursday hold separate Dussehra rallies in the city where both are expected to target each other.
The tradition of annual Dussehra rally of the Shiv Sena began when Bal Thackeray founded the party in 1966. The Sena split in 2022 with Eknath Shinde rebelling against Uddhav Thackeray's leadership.
Thackeray will hold the Shiv Sena (UBT)'s rally at Shivaji Park in Dadar, while Shinde will address his party workers at NESCO Exhibition Centre in Goregaon.
The rallies come after the Thackeray-led Sena's debacle in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly polls and ahead of local body elections in Mumbai and elsewhere in the state.
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Besides launching salvos at the BJP-led Centre and the state government over a range of issues including financial assistance to farmers hit by the floods in Marathwada, Thackeray is also expected to speak about a possible alliance with his once-estranged cousin and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray.
The Shivaji Park ground, meanwhile, had large puddles of water in the afternoon with rains lashing the city intermittently. If it continues to rain, it could cause trouble for the Shiv Sena (UBT) rally.
Shinde had earlier planned his rally at Azad Maidan, but shifted the venue to Goregaon as rains turned the ground in South Mumbai into a large puddle.
He also appealed party workers from outside the Mumbai region not to travel to the city for the rally, and instead help flood-hit farmers.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut said the rival Sena's rally will produce only "smoke". Shinde has begun to think of himself as another Bal Thackeray but he can not understand the late Sena patriarch, he said.
"There are only two Dussehra rallies in Maharashtra: One held by the RSS (in Nagpur), and the other by Uddhav Thackeray," Raut added.
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