Of the four people whom Milind 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 surgeon.

Soon after he had split from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena faction, Shinde while talking about all the “sacrifices” he had made for the party had mentioned Shrikant too. “My son would often ask me for help in setting up a hospital… However, I was never in position to fulfill this demand.”

At the same time, it was Shinde’s persistence that ensured that Shrikant got the 2014 Lok Sabha ticket from Kalyan. In the Modi wave election, Shrikant trumped his NCP rival by 2.5 lakh votes; the 27-year-old was at the time still enrolled for his MD, completing it only in 2015.

During the initial days, Shrikant’s activities in the Sena were largely limited to works of the Yuva Sena. But the 2019 re-election from Kalyan gave him muscle, and the 2022 Sena rebellion and his father’s emergence as a leader out of the Thackeray shadow added the punch that he needed.

During that phase, Shrikant was the person on the ground in the state coordinating the numbers as Sena leaders one by one started turning up by Shinde’s side in faraway Guwahati. He addressed a gathering in Thane at this time, warning Uddhav Shiv Sainiks against resorting to “vandalism” or facing retaliation.

As Shinde settled down in his new role of CM, Shrikant also eased into it. He is now known to command substantial say over the state bureaucracy, as well as within the party led by his father.

Shrikant is also working on expanding his political network outside Maharashtra – and luring Deora could well be his way of announcing his intent as a serious player on the national stage.

Shrikant’s evolution is also exemplified by the fact that, in typical combative Sena style, he has rubbed a section of the BJP cadre the wrong way. Last year, the BJP unit in Kalyan expressed their reservation over supporting Shrikant as MP from the seat in 2024, demanding the party field a candidate, and calling Shrikant “high-handed”, who treated BJP workers “disparagingly”.

It took the intervention of the top state BJP leadership to tide over that crisis.

With Deora’s statement indicating his new avatar as the Shinde Sena’s recruiter of leaders from other parties, he says more are expected to follow. “Many have joined the party in the last two years under the leadership of Eknath Shinde. More and more will be coming,” Shrikant told The Indian Express.

Asked if the party had promised any particular post to Deora, Shrikant said: “We have not promised anything. There were no such negotiations. But we will definitely give him responsibility. Milind is a good communicator and a dynamic leader. Our party will make use of his leadership.”

Up ahead, the young leader is also facing a tough re-election battle. The Uddhav Sena has picked Kalyan as one of the seats it will focus on, declaring that it would leave no stone unturned to wipe out the “dynasty rule that has struck roots in Kalyan”.

But Shrikant may have already outgrown the tag of a mere dynast.