India, March 30 -- The civic elections, if held as per the schedule this year, will alter Mumbai's profile - and the fate of the Thackeray brand of politics which has held sway over the city for four long decades. While it stands on the quicksand of shifting loyalties, Matoshree has its eyes set on one of the country's richest civic bodies - the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation -- as its badge of honour, a weapon by which it can earn political heft. However, in that endeavour, it has to bear in mind deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, a proverbial camel in the Thackeray-BMC story.

That Shinde, a Shiv Sainik from Thane and a Balasaheb Thackeray devotee, should roll up his sleeves to decimate Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena and wrest the B...