Newsmaker | More than his father’s son: Shrikant Sena seals arrival with Milind Deora move

Of the four people whomMilind Deora thanked, claiming they had been instrumental in his decision to jump ship from the Congress, three names were expected: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. But the fourth – Shrikant Shinde – raised a lot of eyebrows.

The Maharashtra CM’s eldest son and an MP, Shrikant entered the electoral arena only in 2014, at his father Shinde’s best, and remains a political lightweight who has started gaining clout only since Shinde Senior emerged as the leader of the split Shiv Sena and as the CM.

Uneasy at the sudden media spotlight, the diffident 37-year-old admits roping in Deora marks a significant development for the party, which bears the stamp of the official Shiv Sena but is yet to be tested electorally.

“We have been working to strengthen our party. Milind is a young leader with good experience. He has got connections across communities. With his entry into the Shiv Sena, we will be able to develop stronger connections with all communities,” Shrikant, who was in Zurich on Monday on his way to attend the World Economic Forum, Davos, told The Indian Express over the phone.

Adding that Deora had been an MP twice and also served in the Union ministry, Shrikant added: “He has done good work in Mumbai. As Milind said yesterday, CM Shinde is working tirelessly for the state’s development and he wanted to contribute to it. I am sure he will contribute significantly to the state’s development too.”

Shinde Senior often portrays Shrikant – the only remaining offspring of the CM, who lost two children in a drowning accident in 2000 – as an accidental politician, who was more interested in pursuing his profession as an orthopaedic