The Shiv Sena is accused of using its muscle to break the hold of the Communists on the working-class movements in Mumbai at the behest of the ruling Congress. This famously earned it the moniker of ‘Vasant Sena’ or the army of Vasantrao Naik, the then chief minister of Maharashtra.
In the Lok Sabha elections held in 1967, it successfully supported former civil servant S.G. Barve, a nominee of then Mumbai Congress strongman SK Patil against former defence minister VK Krishna Menon.
While flirting with political forces ranging from the Socialists, Republican Party of India and even the Muslim League, the Shiv Sena strategically chose its sides while allying with the Congress and its factions in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), where its political interests lay.
In 1977, Dr Hemchandra Gupte, who was once the personal physician of the Thackeray family, and the Shiv Sena’s first mayor in Mumbai, quit the party after the Sena supremo supported Murli Deora of the…