Initially, even the established, 40-year-old Shiv Sena dismissed it as being built up with deadwood, but the late Thackeray and senior advisors continued unsuccessful backdoor rapprochement efforts.
Raj Thackeray aggressively went ahead espousing various headline-grabbing causes - attacking north Indian migrants right up to Samajwadi Party state chief Abu Asim Azmi and mega-star Amitabh Bachchan and speaking up for Marathis who were laid off by various companies - but carefully maintaining its secular credentials.
But it was in the 2009 Maharashtra assembly elections that MNS' true potential came to the fore - it bagged 13 seats in the 272-member house, becoming the fifth largest entity after the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena.
Earlier that year, it managed to damage the prospects of at least a dozen BJP-Shiv Sena alliance candidates in the Lok Sabha elections - sounding alarm bells.
