News Analysis| Rane’s controverisal remark sees Aaditya Thackeray's Yuva Sena come into its own

Incident has seen a re-assertion of the Shiv Sena's old aggressive spirit through its younger activists.

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Minister Narayan Rane’s ‘slapgate’ contretemps has seen a renascence of the Shiv Sena’s supposedly dormant aggressive spirit. Within hours of Mr. Rane’s controversial statement (of August 23) that he “would have slapped Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray” for allegedly forgetting the year of India's Independence, Sena workers, mainly from the party’s youth wing, the Yuva Sena, led strident agitations at several places in Maharashtra, pelted the BJP offices with stones and squared-off with its activists on the streets of Mumbai. According to observers, the most important takeaway from the ‘slapgate’ fiasco is the coming of the Yuva Sena, led by Mr. Uddhav Thackeray’s son Aaditya Thackeray, into its own.