Bal ThackerayBal Thackeray.

Bal Keshav Thackeray (Marathi pronunciation:; 23 January 1926 to 17 November 2012), also known as Balasaheb Thackeray, was an Indian cartoonist and politician who founded the original Shiv Sena, a right-wing Marathi regionalist and a Hindu nationalist party, active mainly in the state of Maharashtra. Thackeray began his professional career as a cartoonist with the English-language daily, The Free Press Journal in Bombay, but he left the paper in 1960 to form his own political weekly, Marmik. His political philosophy was largely shaped by his father Keshav Sitaram Thackeray, a leading figure in the Sanyukta Maharashtra (United Maharashtra) movement, which advocated for the creation of a separate linguistic state for Marathi speakers.