AN attempt by some former Shiv Sainiks to bring the executive president of the Shiv Sena, Mr Uddhav Thackeray and the president of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, Mr Raj Thackeray together once again has been frowned at by both the rival cousins.

The organisers of a silent pro-unity march must be highly disappointed. But the blame for their humiliation should go to them alone. It is not that an individual or section of individuals that have come out of a party and formed a new one cannot set up a joint front or merge with the old party. Independent India’s political history is full of instances of ‘rebels’ coming home. In several states, individual leaders have broken away and formed their own parties at some juncture and come back and dissolved their outfit into the old party at another juncture. Let us be clear that there is no politics in India; there is only realpolitik–that is, politics based on realities. And today’s realities are that both the Thackeray cousins want to fight each other for some years to finally decide who is the heir to the Balasaheb legacy. Until that battle is over, and we are left with one cousin as victor and another as vanquished, the ‘reunion’ is not going to take place.