Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday vowed to revive his party’s influence in the coastal Konkan region, which used to be a traditional stronghold of his party, even as he reiterated that his party alone is “the only real Shiv Sena”.

“We will reclaim Konkan. The election results there were unexpected. People can be fooled once, but not always,” he said, referring to the party’s poor performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the Maharashtra assembly election.

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Thackeray signalled an aggressive revival plan and announced his intention to tour the entire Konkan belt to rebuild the party’s grassroots network. “We are returning to every village, every taluka. Konkan belongs to us, and we will win it back,” Uddhav Thackeray said.

The coastal Konkan region, stretching from Mumbai to Sindhudurg, has long been an important political base of the undivided Shiv Sena before the party split in 2022.

Uddhav Thackeray also attacked the rival Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and said, “There is only one Shiv Sena and it is led by me”.

Addressing Shiv Sena workers and supporters at ‘Matoshree’, his Bandra East residence in Mumbai, Uddhav Thackeray claimed that his Shiv Sena is the only party in Maharashtra which “keeps its promises,” adding that Maharashtra “needs the Sena more than ever before”.

In this context, it may be noted that in 2024 general elections, the UDdhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, as a constituent of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), won nine Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra but ended up losing key bastions in the Konkan region, including Raigad to the Ajit Pawar-led NCP and the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg belt, to the BJP.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena’s performance declined further in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections and it managed to secure only one seat in Guhagar, which is in the Konkan region, where the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena managed to make significant inroads.

Defeats faced by the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena also triggered a wave of defections, including that of former Sena MLA Rajan Salvi, who joined the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.