After breaking away from the Shiv Sena and floating the MNS, Raj claimed that he had changed his colours. At the same time, he did not lose his old habit of shooting his mouth off, at times with embarrassing consequences. For instance, after the bomb blasts in Mumbai’s suburban trains last year, he warned lawyers against taking up cases defending the accused. That stance resulted in many lawyers challenging him on the ground that defending an accused is a professional requirement and a person is considered innocent until proved guilty — an argument Raj could not refute.

Recently, when Raj Thackeray used the occasion of the first anniversary of his party to warn Biharis “to behave”, he was once again attempting to play to the gallery. His outbursts evoked a round of applause — as expected — from his followers, and he probably thought that he would get away with it like his uncle had done on so many occasions earlier. But Raj Thackeray is not Bal Thackeray. Thackeray Sr has got away with controversial remarks largely because the Sena had the blessings of at least a section of Congress leaders who wished to curb the growth of the communists in Mumbai’s textile hub in the sixties and seventies. Such remarks have generally been ignored by Congress-controlled governments in Maharashtra apparently because of his sheer stature in state politics. He could have, at one stage, brought Mumbai to a halt on any issue of his choosing.

But Thackeray Sr, too, had his moments of embarrassment. He had to face court cases for inciting communal hatred in his electoral campaigns or for publishing defamatory stories in the Sena mouthpiece, Saamna. In 1999 he was even debarred from casting his vote or contesting any election for six years, after the Supreme Court indicted him for his provocative speeches.

... contd.