Sanjay Raut

While many saw Raut’s hand in Uddhav Thackeray’s 2019 decision to break the Sena’s 25-year alliance with the BJP and join the MVA along with its traditional foes, the NCP and Congress, he is now being blamed by rebel Sena MLAs for “damaging” the party and causing a split among the MLAs.

As the long-standing associate editor of Saamana, the party mouthpiece, Raut was until 2019 known mostly for his acerbic editorials, but came into the limelight after the Assembly elections that year, when the Sena broke its ties with the BJP over the CM post.

Raut was first elected to Rajya Sabha in July 2004 and soon after, was unanimously elected as the party’s chief whip in the Upper House, where his blistering speeches caught the attention of rival parties and his bosses in Mumbai. His entry to Rajya Sabha also meant that Raut served as the party’s face in New Delhi.

Raut is known to have played a major part in forging the 2019 alliance with the NCP-Congress, which many claimed was made possible because of his close association with NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

For almost a month after the elections, as the political impasse played out, Raut managed to send out the message to other parties as well the public that the next CM of Maharashtra would be from the Sena. Addressing the media, he would repeatedly say, “Maharashtra me sarkar banegi, aur mukhya mantri Shiv Sena ka hi hoga (The government will be formed in Maharashtra and the Sena will head it).”

Many were amused at the predictability of the line that he spouted at his press conferences, but when Thackeray finally took over as CM in November 2019, Raut had the last laugh.

Raut started his career as a reporter in 1980 with the Mumbai-based ‘Marmik’, a Marathi weekly. In 1981, he joined the editorial board of the Lokprabha, the Marathi weekly of The Indian Express Group, where he did a series of investigative stories on Mumbai’s underworld.

While in his thirties, in 1991, he was hand-picked by Sena founder Bal Thackeray and made Executive Editor of ‘Saamana’. It was here that developed a close relationship with Bal Thackeray and subsequently with Uddhav and Raj Thackeray.