The Spin Cycle

It takes two to tango. Raj Thackeray, Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s miffed nephew, has joined forces with ex-LS speaker Manohar Joshi and son Unmesh in a business venture that may see political repercussions in months to come. Raj’s Matoshree Realtors and Joshi’s Kohinoor have jointly bid for the jewel in the ntc crown—the five-acre Kohinoor Mills in upscale Shivaji Park. Kohinoor, incidentally, is bang opposite the party HQ, Sena Bhavan, which itself is under renovation with more office space for the Thackeray cousins, Raj and Sena working president Uddhav. So where does Joshi fit in? "The partnership is for tactical business reasons," says a poker-faced Raj aide, "we don’t want Marathi dominance in the area to reduce". If the bid comes through, the ‘dominance’ could well turn political soon.