Mumbai: It's the first time, a Thackeray is contesting elections. But it is not one of the men; it is a woman - Shalini Thackeray. But what makes this debut more interesting is the fact that Shalini Thackeray is a North Indian.
"I am proud to have Thackeray as my last name," MNS candidate from Mumbai North West, Shalini Thackeray says.
Bahu of the dynasty, wife of Jeetendra, a cousin of MNS Chief Raj Thackeray, and she's the daughter of a north Indian family.
Shalini's mother is from Uttar Pradesh, her father is from Punjab; both, by the MNS standards, are parprantiyas - not sons of the soil who have been constant targets of Raj Thackeray's politics of hate.
And so what is the MNS doing, fielding a woman who along with a Marathi mangalsutra also wears North Indian style sindoor?
"I can make puran polis as well as chana-bhatoora," Shalini puts forth.
And so it seems that the MNS is not being cosmopolitan. It's simply being pragmatic. Shalini is their best bet, for a constituency where North Indians are only second in number to Maharashtrians.
The homemaker-businesswoman has comfortably slipped into the shoes of an MNS leader, addressing rallies and press conferences on her pro-Marathi stand, leaving little trace of her own North Indian roots.
"I have been here since the age of three. Everything I am today is because of Maharashtra," Shalini says. And this is a line, that at rallies, transforms into this: "For 60 years Marathis have met with injustice. It's time to change that. It's war time!"
When asked about the influx of people from rural Maharashtra who also stay illegally and don't pay rent, Shalini Thackeray says, "Those are still our people and we have to look after them. But looking after people who are not responsibility, as well as who have their own states cannot happen together."
At the end of it all, the MNS may be speaking in multiple tongues, but it is hoping that Shalini will get its message across.