Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (Marathi pronunciation: [ud̪ʱːəʋ ʈʰaːkɾeː], born 27 July 1960) is an Indian politician who served as the 19th Chief Minister of Maharashtra from 2019 to 2022. He was the president of Shiv Sena prior to its split in 2022, and leader of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray). Early life Uddhav Thackeray was born on 27 July 1960 as the youngest of politician Bal Thackeray and his wife Meena Thackeray's three sons. He did his schooling from Balmohan Vidyamandir and graduated from Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art with photography as his main subject. Political career In 2002, Thackeray started his political career as campaign incharge of Shiv Sena in the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation elections where the party performed well. In 2003, he was appointed as working president of Shiv Sena. Uddhav took over as chief editor of party mouthpiece Saamana (a daily Marathi-language newspaper published by Shiv Sena) in 2006 and resigned in 2019 before becoming chief minister of Maharashtra. A split in Shiv Sena happened when his cousin Raj Thackeray left the party in 2006 to form his own party named Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. After the death of his father Bal Thackeray in 2012, he led the party and was elected as Shiv Sena president in 2013, and under his leadership Shiv Sena joined the NDA government in Maharashtra in 2014. In 2019, Shiv Sena broke away with NDA and joined UPA. It formed a sub alliance called Maha Vikas Aghadi to form the government in Maharashtra with Uddhav Thackeray leading the ministry. In 2022, during a party meeting, Uddhav Thackeray explained his move to pull out of NDA to join UPA. "We supported the BJP wholeheartedly to enable them to fulfill their national ambitions. The understanding was they will go national while we will lead in Maharashtra. But we were betrayed and attempts were made to destroy us in our home. So we had to hit back". Thackeray accused BJP of dumping its allies according to its political convenience. He said, "BJP doesn't mean Hindutva. I stand by my comment that Shiv Sena had wasted 25 years in alliance with BJP." Chief Minister of Maharashtra Though Thackeray never took any constitutional post in his political career initially, however after a brief political crisis, on 28 November 2019 he took the oath as 19th Chief minister of Maharashtra after being elected as the president of the