Raj gets new name, Dhanajirao, as birthday gift from Bal Thackeray

Raj Thackeray would get a bouquet from uncle Bal Thackeray on his birthday every year. However, this year was different as the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief got a gift that he wouldn’t want to cherish. Raj’s gift from his political mentor Bal Thackeray was a new name — Dhanajirao (a euphemism for one who is wealthy or hankers after money).

While Raj turned 42 amidst celebrations by his supporters and party workers at his Shivaji Park home, Bal Thackeray wrote an editorial titled ‘Dhanajirao’s nose’ in Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna. “Dhanajirao (Raj) accepted that Shiv Sena has a nose, but what about his own nose which has been chopped off by the Congress?” wrote Bal Thackeray, who did not take kindly to Raj blasting the Sena in his interaction with media on Saturday.    

“Sena has its own nose because it is a party of the poor and the middle-class and no one can display his self respect unless he has a nose. What do you have in place on the nose, Kohinoor diamond?” wrote the senior Thackeray, who used to call the MNS chief ‘Fatya’ during Raj’s childhood and ‘Raja’ when he was a youngster.

Also, the title Dhanajirao given to Raj by Bal Thackeray is the latest in a series of such nicknames given by the Shiv Sena chief to his political opponents in the last 40 years.

Bal Thackeray had called senior journalist and playwright PK Atre ‘Worliche dukkar’ (Worli’s pig), while Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar was ‘maidyache pote’ (sack of flour), a reference to the Maratha strongman’s girth.

Bal Thackeray’s had referred to Chhagan Bhujbal as ‘Lakhoba Lokhande’ (a traitor in Shivaji’s era), after Bhujbal had quit Sena to join Congress in 1993. He had also made fun of Narayan Rane, who quit Sena in 2005 to join Congress, by calling him ‘Naroba’.