Dadar-Shivaji Park is the birthplace of the Shiv Sena, the party headquarters, its strongest bastion. But today, loyal Shiv Sainiks wore a shocked, sombre look. The MNS’s Nitin Sardesai had tamed the tiger in its den, defeating both a Sena candidate and a veteran Sena MLA-turned-Congress candidate.

Once the results came in, young MNS supporters rode two-wheelers on the streets, shouting slogans cheekily near the Sena Bhavan, and shopkeepers, meeting over endless cups of tea, debated how and why the Sena lost its fortress.

The elders, especially mill workers who still support the Shiv Sena, maintained that the youth had gone the MNS way. “I have always been a Sena loyalist but my son is an MNS supporter. I cannot change his view,” said Uday Patil who lives near Sena Bhavan.

Not only did Sardesai of the MNS trump TV actor Adesh Bandekar of the Shiv Sena and popular legislator Sada Sarvankar who had switched to the Congress after being denied a ticket for the Mahim seat, he did so with an impressive margin. Sardesai dented the Sena vote share heavily, winning by a 12,000-plus margin with his 48,723 votes.

Though it was business as usual in Dadar — right from the flower market through the crowded shopping hub around Sena Bhavan, all the way up to Shivaji Park — it was clear that the new Sena had made its mark, especially in this constituency.

When the counting was on at the Dr Antonio Dasilva School, you could tell who was winning. MNS tricolour flags multiplied fast in the lane outside the school while the crowd of Shiv Sena supporters thinned after every announcement.

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