Uddhav Bal Thackeray (born 27 July 1960) is an Indian politician who was the nineteenth Chief Minister of Maharashtra, from November 2019 to June 2022. The youngest son of the Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, he led the party from 2013 and, after it split in 2022, heads the faction known as the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray).
Quick Facts
| Full name | Uddhav Bal Thackeray |
| Born | 27 July 1960, Bombay |
| Age | 66 |
| Education | Balmohan Vidyamandir; Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai |
| Party | Shiv Sena (UBT) |
| Offices | Chief Minister of Maharashtra (2019–2022); President of the Shiv Sena (2013–2022) |
| Father | Bal Thackeray |
| Spouse | Rashmi Thackeray |
| Children | Aaditya and Tejas |
Early Life
He was born in Bombay, the youngest of the three sons of Bal Thackeray and Meena Thackeray. He was educated at Balmohan Vidyamandir and took a degree from the Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art. Quiet and reserved, he was for years thought the least political of the family.
Photographer
He ran an advertising agency and became a serious photographer, known for his pictures of wildlife and for aerial photographs of the forts of Maharashtra. He has published books of his work, including Maharashtra Desha and a volume on the Pandharpur pilgrimage, and has donated the proceeds of exhibitions to farmers’ relief.
Career
In the Shiv Sena
He began managing the party’s newspaper, Saamana, and its election campaigns in the 1990s. In 2003 his father named him executive president of the party. His cousin Raj Thackeray, who had been regarded as Bal Thackeray’s political heir, left in 2006 to form his own party. After his father’s death in November 2012 Uddhav became party chief. Under him the Sena softened its street-fighting image and broadened its appeal beyond its old Marathi base.
Chief Minister
After the 2019 assembly election the Sena fell out with its ally of thirty years, the Bharatiya Janata Party, over the sharing of the chief ministership. Uddhav then did what had seemed impossible: he joined hands with the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress in an alliance called the Maha Vikas Aghadi. He was sworn in on 28 November 2019, the first member of his family to hold public office.
His government was occupied chiefly with the Covid-19 pandemic, in which Mumbai’s handling of hospital beds and oxygen was praised. He had spinal surgery in late 2021.
The split
In June 2022 a senior minister, Eknath Shinde, rebelled with about forty of the party’s legislators and allied with the BJP. Uddhav resigned on 29 June. In February 2023 the Election Commission awarded the party name and its bow-and-arrow symbol to Shinde’s group. Uddhav’s faction took the name Shiv Sena (UBT) and the symbol of a flaming torch.
Since 2022
His party won nine Lok Sabha seats in 2024 as part of the opposition alliance but only twenty in the Maharashtra assembly election that November, which the BJP-led alliance won heavily. In 2025 he and Raj Thackeray came together on the issue of the Marathi language, ending a twenty-year estrangement, and their parties fought the Mumbai municipal election of January 2026 as allies; his party won sixty-five seats, second to the BJP.
Personal Life
He married Rashmi Patankar in 1989; she edits Saamana. Their elder son, Aaditya, is a member of the legislative assembly and was a minister in his father’s government; the younger, Tejas, is a wildlife researcher who has discovered several species of crabs and snakes. The family lives at Matoshree in Bandra, Mumbai.
Featured image: Uddhav Thackeray in November 2024. Photo by Shrirampur, licensed under CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
