In his first political battle,the 20-year-old Aditya Thackeray,who had recently anointed youth face of Shiv Sena,emerged victorious overcoming the challenge of his uncle MNS chief Raj Thackeray and wiping out the dominance of Congress and BJP in the Mumbai University Senate. Shiv Sena won eight out of the total 10 seats of the Senate which is an important decision making body of the over 150-year-old University. The students wing of Sena won all the seats in the reserved category while taking three out of five seats in the general category. MNS had to be satisfied with only two seats in the General Category. Abhijit Panse,President of the Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena (Youth wing of Shiv Sena) said that it is for the first time that any single political party has bagged eight seats in the Senate. The Sena youth wing had three members in the earlier senate out of which two had crossed over to MNS. The Sena victory is significant as MNS,Nitesh Rane's Swabhiman and the Congress had contested the elections together. The election to senate was seen as a precursor to all important Mumbai civic polls slated for early 2012. The youth wings of Congress and BJP failed to win a single seat. In the open category for the senate,there were 27 candidates and for OBC six candidates while the remaining reserved category had three candidates each. Interesting fact about this election is that it had preferential voting - that is one has the option of voting for more than one candidate and making every vote count. University also used colour code scheme for the ballot papers to make the counting easier. Elections were held for ten senate seats from graduate constituency on Sunday. Of the 10 seats,five were reserved for women,OBCs,SCs,STs and Nomadic Tribe. The party celebrated its success at Sena Bhavan,the party office in central Mumbai yesterday with huge fire crackers and distributing sweets. Party Executive President Uddhav Thackeray was present to congratulate his son,Aditya's success in the polls. Sena's good-showing is being considered in political circles here as a victory of Aditya,grandson of Bal Thackeray. Aditya had campaigned for the election. Aditya dedicated the victory to the hard work of party workers. Asked if he has won over his uncle,Raj,Aditya said,"My target was voters and students. My aim was to get my candidates elected." The youth leader,who heads fledgling Yuva Sena,said he now wants to work on anti-ragging act and improvement of the system of revaluation of answer papers. He is also keen on providing facilities to the students and revive the glory of the university. Aditya was in news earlier this year when he successfully ensured the ban some time back for demanding removal of Rohinton Mistry's book 'Such A Long Journey' from the second year graduate syllabus of the university for containing "objectionable" remarks about the Sena and Marathi people. Out of the 46,000 registered graduates,20,000 voted,according to the university sources.
