'Mahayuti has a face that is corrupt... We need to have a face that people can trust'

AADITYA THACKERAY, the 34-year-old MLA from Mumbai's Worli Assembly constituency, tells Aditi Phadnis the Shiv Sena, then led by his father Uddhav Thackeray, was a victim of political treachery and voters know the constructive work the previous Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government did. Edited excerpts from an interview at Matoshree, the bungalow of the Thackeray family in Mumbai:

You back all the right causes: Solutions to climate change, environment protection, and women's rights, but you don't speak on bureaucratic and political corruption in Maharashtra. You don't say anything on extortion...

My general outlook on politics is: This is a field where you can make maximum impact.

There are two ways of making an impact -you get TRPs, you finger point at each other, you do mudslinging, and then you become famous because of mudslinging.

The other is what I've learnt from my father focus on a goal and work towards it silently. If you see our work on tactical urbanism, on environment, even on attracting industry to Maharashtra, the two and a half years of our government-much of it engulfed in fighting Covid-saw zero social unrest. There were no caste or religion battles.

You've brought the Shiv Sena into universities and colleges. There have been unexpected gains for the Sena in the farm sector in some areas. But your traditional urban Maharashtrian voter is drifting away from you...

The Sena was there in universities even earlier but we gave it the outlook of the Yuva Sena and we involved college students... In the past two and a half years, it may look like that (urban Maharashtrian voters are drifting away) because elections to the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) haven't taken place.