The streets of Worli are lined with colourful hoardings of Thackeray scion Aaditya announcing his arrival on the political stage. The hoardings show the Yuva Sena chief in a plain white kurta, waving. The text reads 'How are you, Worli?' in more than five languages, including Gujarati, Urdu and Hindi. One language per hoarding.
Two things stand out conspicuously in this campaign messaging, designed by poll strategist Prashant Kishor.
One, Shiv Sena's departure from its 'Marathi only' stand, and two, the absence of Sena founder Bal Thackeray and current party president Uddhav Thackeray from the hoardings.
The bid is to launch the Thackeray scion as a plural, modern multilingual leader, who looks beyond the interests of Marathis alone.
Worli is no more a hub of the 'Marathi manoos' but has emerged as the new business and residential district in south Mumbai, with an inflow of non-Marathi-speaking population.
The Sena has chosen to field Aaditya from Worli with the objective of reaching out to a cross-section of this mixed-culture population in a bid to project his modern image.
Worli is also a working class neighbourhood with Telegu-, Hindi- and Gujarati-speaking electorate.
And the absence of the senior Thackerays is a clear way of ensuring Aaditya gets enough space to shed the baggage of the Sena's conservative, regional image, and stand as an independent leader.
The campaign, especially the hoarding with Aaditya saying 'Kem Cho, Worli', quickly became fodder for online trolls.
The opposition is also questioned the Sena, seeking to know whether it has given up its 'Marathi pride sentiment' to garner votes.
The leader of opposition in state council, Dhananjay Munde, took a jibe asking whether Aaditya had joined coaching classes to learn Gujarati. ''What happened to Shiv Sena's much-touted plank for fighting for the rights of the Marathi manoos?” he said.
Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray's media advisor Harshal Pradhan defended Aaditya's ad campaign, saying it was to establish a connect with the people of Worli who speak different languages.
“There is no question of any disrespect to Marathi-speaking people. Another campaign will be launched on Thursday in which Shiv Sena and Aaditya will release his development vision for Worli and the state as a whole,” Pradhan said.
It is on Thursday that Aaditya will file his nomination papers.
Pradhan also said that before the BMC elections in 2017, the party's campaign in Marathi, 'Karun Dakhavla' ['We did it'], had invited a lot of scorn on social media, but it was a hit with the public and the party won the polls.
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