A MIND OF HIS OWN
When his phone rang one evening in July, Uddhav Thackeray’s personal assistant Milind Narvekar rushed to the Maharashtra chief minister to tell him that Sharad Pawar was on the line. “Kiti vela call kartat he (how many times will he call)?” an irritated Thackeray asked Narvekar. By the time he took the call, Pawar, who had overheard the exchange, had disconnected.
On November 28, 2019, when Thackeray took over as the 19th chief minister of Maharashtra, many had predicted that he would be a “puppet chief minister”, and the shrewd Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar would call the shots. After all, the Maratha strongman was the force behind the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), an unlikely coalition of ideologically opposed parties, and the one who convinced acting Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to back Thackeray as chief minister.
Yet, a year down the line, Thackeray has proved his detractors wrong and emerged his own man. He has withstood pressure from his own allies, refusing to let the senior Pawar or his ambitious nephew Ajit dictate terms, yet following the coalition of giving NCP and Congress ministers enough freedom without total control. At the same time, he has survived the
