Sena scion Aaditya Thackeray makes a stellar debut with a 26,000-vote margin

• Aaditya Thackeray's early counting showed a comfortable lead with over 75% vote share at 10 am.
• This is the first election that Bal Thackeray's grandson is contesting in.
• His father Uddhav Thackeray is the head of the Shiv Sena party.

Sena candidate Aaditya Thackeray made a stellar debut in politics. He won the Worli seat with a 26,000 vote margin over his nearest competitor NCP's Suresh Mane. He has secured 87, 453 votes, as per election commission website while his closest competitor Suresh Mane got 21,393 votes.

So much so, his party members have already started suggesting his name for the post of deputy CM as Sena and BJP have already started a war of words over portfolios.

One of Maharashtra’s youngest candidates, the 29-year-old Aditya Thackeray is likely to win his first election, says an exit poll by Times Now. As per the poll, he will conveniently win from the Worli seat that he is contesting. A total of 13 candidates are contesting from the seat across various parties like NCP, BSP along with seven independents.

Aditya has been playing an active role before and after campaigning as well. After he cast his vote today, he kept hopping from booth to booth across the city, meeting voters and party workers. He also urged the public to come out and vote in the several interviews he gave today.

The son of Uddhav Thackeray and grandson of deceased Sena supremo Bal Thackeray started his career in politics nine years back as the Youth wing leader of the party.

He soon rose to become a leader and has contested his first-ever election this time around, fighting from the Worli constituency. The party has strong roots in the Maharashtrian community which lives around Dadar and Worli areas. In fact, the headquarters of the party is located in the same area.

His father Uddhav Thackeray who heads the Sena party, recently said that he sees a Sena member becoming the chief minister of the state, one day. Currently, Sena is in alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party which fields the chief ministerial position. Many political pundits and public alike believed that the statement was made to coincide with Aditya’s political debut.

But Aditya did not have a smooth ride. He was ridiculed for sporting a lungi, a South Indian attire, as his detractors cited his grandfather’s attacks on South Indian migrants a few decades back. He was also caught on the wrong foot endorsing the BEST bus service, and his refusal to address issues like a toddler slipping down the drain--did not go down well with the social media.