At Raj Thackeray’s Shivaji Park residence, officials from the Vikhroli police station escorted Thackeray to a police van amid tight security. As the van sped off, Mohan Wagh, theatre personality and his father-in-law, told reporters: “Raj knew he was going to get arrested. He has gone to prison for a good cause.”

Asked what “the good cause” was, he said: “Don’t you know what the good cause is? I am sure every Marathi citizen knows the nature of the cause.”

“We seem to have made the same mistake we made in the 1960s,” said a senior Congress leader and CWC member. “If we had stepped in and stopped Bal Thackeray when he launched his campaign against south Indians, there would be no Shiv Sena or all these headaches.”

“This time we have allowed Raj and his supporters to run riot for over a week, spread his message, beat up people, claim credit for the campaign and only then arrested him, making him a hero,” he said. “I only hope we don’t end up paying a similar political price like we did the last time around.”

When Bal Thackeray formed the Shiv Sena in 1966 and subsequently launched his campaign against migrants from south India, the Congress was in the throes of a division with the Syndicate of old-timers ganging up against then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

With Communism on the rise and making inroads into a slowly industrializing Maharashtra and Indira Gandhi showing signs of leaning towards the Left, then Chief Minister Vasantrao Naik, initially a Syndicate supporter, found it convenient to turn a blind eye to the Shiv Sena.

... contd.