The Thackeray Cousins Invoke Adani Group’s Expansion in Battle to Win Mumbai’s Civic Body

On Sunday, at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park grounds, a traditional venue for Shiv Sena gatherings in a predominantly Maharashtrian neighbourhood, the cousins Raj and Uddhav Thackeray held an election rally. There was a lot of thundering political grandstanding for the city’s municipal election to be held on Thursday, January 15.

But Raj Thackeray introduced a new and unusual note – he showed a video presentation on a giant screen which detailed how Gautam Adani and his empire had expanded in Mumbai and Maharashtra over the last few years. Never had this been done before. It was detailed and for the viewer, shocking.

From 2014-2018, according to this graphic, Adani was present only in one place in Maharashtra, where the group had a thermal power plant. Moving forward, it shows how each year the group expanded, acquiring airports, electricity plants, and mines. Now it also has the ‘ambition’ to get into nuclear power, the graphic shows.

“Over the past few years, the Adani Group has expanded at an extraordinary pace – be it the power sector, ports, airports, or almost every major sphere within the state. One by one, critical sectors are being handed over to a single corporate conglomerate.

As Maharashtrians, if we fail to view this rapid consolidation with the seriousness it demands today, inch by inch, vast stretches of land and key assets of this state will slip into the hands of one corporate group,” Raj Thackeray says on X.

Between 2014 and 2025, span of just eleven year the Adani Group, with the government’s blessings, has expanded across the country at an unprecedented pace, steadily building dominance across multiple sectors.

This video offers a glimpse into that rapid rise and growing monopoly… pic.twitter.com/vbw1p3ZycM

— Raj Thackeray (@RajThackeray) January 13, 2026

This presentation lays out the staggering scale of the Adani Group’s expansion across the state and is well worth watching

Along with this, there was one more power point which showed a similar expansion over India, which blankets the country in the past 10 years. His point is made, that not just Mumbai and Maharashtra but also the country is now in the grip of Adani.

His speech was covered live by the Marathi channel but the Adani-owned NDTV Marathi switched off when he began mentioning Adani.

Adani is a code not just for crony capitalism, but also for a Gujarati being favoured. The Gujarati-Maharashtrian fault line in Mumbai is an old one – during the creation of linguistic states in the 1950s, both sides fought to take control over Bombay, and in the end the city came to Maharashtra. Gujaratis still control the capital and they were, for a short while, the chief target of Bal Thackeray’s nativist Shiv Sena before he shifted to attack the south Indians. (Raj Thackeray is still repeating some of those slogans in his bid to appeal to Marathi speakers.)

Both the cousins, who came together to fight the BJP and its associated partners in the elections are talking about standing up for the Marathi manoos (natives) but their campaign is still listless. The breakaway Sena led by Eknath Shinde also runs on a similar platform and along with it talks about development. The ruling BJP is cash rich and won the most number of seats the last time when it was in a coalition with the united Shiv Sena. The media backs the BJP and even the two other parties in the ruling Mahayuti too appear to be also rans. There is talk of the two NCPs, run by uncle and rebellious nephew, coming together.

Whether any of these formations will topple the BJP – which may still require partners to get a full majority – is still a matter of speculation. But the Uddhav Sena, which ran the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation for 25-odd years, may end up losing its grip. The BMC has a budget of Rs 75000 crore and everyone wants control of it. Not that these riches reflect in the condition of the city, with its pollution and potholes.

Raj Thackeray’s salvoes may have come too late. He has made a strong point and seeing a graphic representation of the Adanis group’s grip is very compelling, but there is not much time left to make much of it. The same facts presented some days or weeks ago would have been much more powerful.

Adani’s growing presence in Mumbai – he now runs the airports, an electricity provider and has won contracts to redevelop vast tracts of land, a very lucrative prospect – is a fact and no doubt he will become an even more powerful conglomerate here. It was something the Shiv Sena and the Thackerays could have made something out of in power – they can still do it if they become a strong opposition.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

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