Mumbai: Bal Thackeray is no more.
The Shiv Sena supremo Bal
Thackeray passed away on Saturday
after protracted illness at his home
‘Matoshree’ in suburban Mumbai.
Thousands of Shiv Sainiks who had
converged outside the Thackeray
residence in Bandra (East) broke
into tears on hearing the news and
started chanting ‘Jai Shivaji’ in
honour of their leader who
championed the cause of ‘Marathi
Manoos’ cries.
The passing away of 86-year-old
‘Balasaheb’, as Thackeray Senior
was fondly called, has created a
void that will be difficult to fill for
the Shiv Sena, which has always
revolved around him. To party
workers he was more like the
family patriarch and not just the
founder of the Shiv Sena.
As much as he was revered and
adored, he was prone to
controversies that he kicked up
with his provocative, at times
vitriolic, statements meant to fire
up Marathi nationalism and Hindu
hard line politics.
Thackeray had been keeping unwell
for some time and had been under
the care of a team of doctors from
the Leelavati Hospital.
At the Sena's Dussehra rally in
Mumbai recently, he addressed
party workers via a recorded video
message, asking them to support
his son Uddhav and grandson
Aditya. “I have collapsed
physically... I can't walk... I am
tired,” he said.
Hundreds of policemen and RAF
personal have been deployed in the
area and elsewhere in the city as a
precautionary measure.
Bal Thackeray, a former cartoonist,
had founded the Shiv Sena in 1966
as a "sons of the soil" movement.
The Shiv Sena later formed
government in the state with the
BJP from 1995 to 1999.
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Bal Thackeray passes away
Passed away at 3:30 PM today
http://m.thehindu.com/news/states/other-states/bal-thackeray-passes-away/article4105003.ece/