Smita Thackeray may join Congress

Disenchanted with Shiv Sena, Smita Thackeray, daughter-in-law of party supremo Bal Thackeray appears to be headed for the Congress after publicly expressing her admiration for Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

Smita dropped a bombshell by stating in a newspaper interview that she had become a “big admirer of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and want to be part of the good work being done by them for the country”.

“I cannot stand the suffocation any more and have decided to join the Congress, which has a national and global vision. I now feel most comfortable with the Congress ideology,” she had said.

Today, her son Rahul spoke to journalists, but his comments were ambivalent as he gave no indications whether she was staying on with the Shiv Sena or joining the Congress.

“She is not involved in power struggle. She wants to move forward in politics. But there was no good response from Shiv Sena to her desire. It is not that she has left the Shiv Sena, but her options are open,” he said.

He said his mother had all the respect for the Shiv Sena supremo and had not said anything against him.

Rahul said his mother was out of town and had asked him to meet the media on her behalf but he was not in a position to reply to all the questions.

A politically ambitious person, Smita, estranged wife of Bal Thackeray’s son Jaidev, was a power centre in Maharashtra when the Sena-BJP alliance came to power in 1995.

However, All India Congress Committee Spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said her intention to join the party reflected the “growing disenchantment and disillusionment” of every Indian with the Shiv Sena. He described Shiv Sena as a “party of the past, ignoring the present and undermining and sabotaging the future”.