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00:00In the many battles that characterize the election in Maharashtra, one of the key battles
00:08is who is the real inheritor of Bal Thackeray's legacy. Is it his son Uddhav Thackeray who
00:14heads one faction of the Shiv Sena known as the Sena UBT? Or is it Eknath Shinde, the
00:20rebel Sena leader who broke away from Uddhav in 2022 and went on to become Chief Minister
00:26with the BJP's support? For Uddhav Thackeray, the last few years have been quite tumultuous.
00:32Many were surprised when he broke with the BJP back in 2019 over the issue of Rotational
00:37Chief Ministership and ended up in the arms of the Congress and Sharad Pawar's NCP that
00:42supported him to become Chief Minister. It wasn't long before the BJP swung into action
00:47and engineered a split in the Sena with Eknath Shinde walking away with 40 Shiv Sena MLAs.
00:54And since then, it's really been a question of who is the real inheritor of Bal Thackeray's
00:58legacy. Initially, Uddhav Thackeray had a lot of sympathy for the way in which his party
01:03was split. But that sympathy may not necessarily hold in these state elections. One reason
01:10is that Eknath Shinde has surprisingly turned out to be a more effective administrator than
01:16many people had given him any credit for. He has held his own as Chief Minister of Maharashtra
01:22despite having to depend on the BJP for support to stay in office. Despite the fact that someone
01:28as powerful as Divendra Fadnavis, who was once Chief Minister of Maharashtra, is his
01:33deputy at this point. So despite all those headwinds and challenges, Eknath Shinde has
01:38emerged into his own. Under his leadership in the last couple of years, a number of infrastructure
01:43projects have popped up in Mumbai. They've been inaugurated. We've actually seen them
01:49open up, whether it's been roads, tunnels, etc. And his schemes for women in particular
01:55seem to be the game changer for the BJP as far as Maharashtra is concerned. So for Uddhav
02:00Thackeray, the challenge is not a very simple one. It is a very complex one. And who emerges
02:07on top will be one of the key battles to watch out for in these polls.