Raj Thackeray

Raj Shrikant Thackeray (Marathi pronunciation: [ɾaːd͡ʒ ʈʰaːkɾeː], born Swararaj Shrikant Thackeray; 14 June 1968) is an Indian politician and the founding chairperson of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), a regional political party.

He came to prominence during the campaign for 1990 Maharashtra assembly elections.

During the 1990s, Raj believed himself to be heir of his uncle, Balasaheb.

However, Balasaheb showed strong preference for his own son, Uddhav.

Years after being sidelined by Bal Thackeray's other leaders working for him, Raj Thackeray resigned from Shiv Sena on 27 November 2005 and announced his intention to start a new political party.

Raj was a former member of Shiv Sena till he founded MNS in 2006.

He is the nephew of Balasaheb Thackeray.

Raj Thackeray's given name is a hypocorism of Swararaj.

His parents were Shrikant Thackeray (younger brother of Bal Thackeray) and Kunda Thackeray (younger sister of Bal Thackeray's wife Meena Thackeray).

As a child he learnt tabla, guitar and violin.

Thackeray is a graduate of Mumbai's Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art.

Upon graduation he joined Marmik, the weekly magazine of Bal Thackeray, as a cartoonist.

Thackeray started his political career by launching the student wing of Shiv Sena called Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena.

On 9 March 2006 in Mumbai, Thackeray founded Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.

In February 2008, Raj Thackeray led a violent movement

against migrants from the North Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in Maharashtra and more so in its commercial capital, Mumbai.

At a rally in Shivaji Park, Raj warned that if the dadagiri (intimidating dominance) of these people (North Indians) in Mumbai and Maharashtra continued, he would be compelled to make them leave the metropolis.

Raj was arrested along with a Samajwadi Party leader, Abu Azmi, but was released on paying a penalty of inr 15000.

His party, along with Shiv Sena banned Australian cricketers participating in IPL 3 from playing in Mumbai as a protest against the attack on Indian students in Australia.

In July 2008, Raj issued a public warning that shops in Mumbai needed to have Marathi signboards in addition to the existing English signboards.

He warned that after one month, MNS workers would start blackening non-Marathi signboards.

While there had been a law passed for this earlier by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, it had not been enforced.

In September 2008, MNS workers attacked shops and blackened signboards, to enforce the demand, after which most shop owners complied and installed Marathi signboards.

Six MNS workers were arrested but later released on bail.

Jaya Bachchan, actor and MP of Samajwadi Party, during the Music launch of the Hindi film Drona, said, 'hama yūpī ke loga haiṃ, isalie hiṃdī meṃ bāta kareṃge, mahārāṣṭra ke loga māpha kījie ' (We are people of UP (Uttar Pradesh), so we will speak in Hindi. People of Maharashtra, please excuse).

Thackeray commented that she had no business alluding to all the people of Maharashtra in that statement.

He threatened to ban all Bachchan films unless Jaya apologised in a public forum for hurting Maharashtrians.

MNS workers began to attack theatres featuring films affiliated to her.

It was only after Amitabh tendered an apology that the screening resumed.

Following Raj's threat, Maharashtra Police acted against Raj, issuing a gag order preventing him from speaking to the media.

In October 2008, Jet Airways laid off 800 temporary workers and announced layoffs of an additional 1100 workers.

The laid-off workers included Marathi as well as North-Indians.

Thackeray was asked to intervene.

Following this, Raj Thackeray declared that most of these workers had paid security deposits to the company, and he would meet Jet management to plead their case.

Unless Jet Airways cancelled the layoffs, his party would not allow any Jet Airways plane to take off from any airport in Maharashtra.

Within 12 hours of Raj Thackeray's declaration, Jet chairman Naresh Goyal reversed the layoffs and reinstated the sacked employees.

He said that he did it on his own and that there was no political pressure on him.

On 2 October 2009, MNS workers disrupted the screening of the film Wake Up Sid on its release in a few Pune and Mumbai theatres, after Raj objected to references in the movie to "Bombay" rather than "Mumbai".

The city of Mumbai was referred to as "Bombay" in many scenes and in some songs (lyrics by Javed Akhtar).

The film's producer, Karan Johar, visited Raj's residence to apologise, and agreed to all of Raj's terms, including an apology on each of the 700 frames in the film.