Even as the Shiv Sena battle plays out in the Supreme Court, Team Shinde is preparing to hit the streets in full force to bolster its ‘true’ claim to the party symbol and legacy.

The Shinde camp is preparing to embark on a ‘Shiv Dhanush Yatra’ by the month-end which will take Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to Ayodhya, from where he is expected to bring back an anointed ‘dhanush’-also the party symbol recently won from the poll panel.

A ‘rath yatra’ bringing the ‘Dhanush’ back from Ayodhya just around Ramnavmi- is envisaged to emphasise the CM’s commitment to the original Shiv Sena ideology, the Babasaheb legacy and the party symbol, ET has learnt.

The Dhanush yatra, in fact, is part of a larger yearlong campaign being planned in the runup to the 2024 Maharashtra assembly election.

With the Uddhav Thackeray group expected to also up the ante on the party symbol, the biggest challenge for the Shinde camp is to project and position itself as the true claimant to the Balasaheb legacy and as the one that has ‘steered’ the party back to its essential Hindutva moorings which were tarnished by an ‘unnatural’ post-poll alliance with the Congress, those privy to the Shinde campaign plan told ET.

It will be underlined through a range of campaigns that will focus on how while Thackeray deviated from the Sena and Balasaheb ideology and legacy by allying with the Congress, Shinde worked to ‘protect’ the party ideology and values and guide it back to its Hindutva core.

The campaign will also look to make a clear distinction between Thackeray and Shinde. The latter will be projected as ‘son of the soil’ and an accessible CM vis a vis the ‘aloof and elite’ Thackeray.The CM is expected to launch political and governance campaigns in tandem to deepen the people’s emotional connect with the party symbol as well as to broad base policy-making and welfare scheme implementation.

“He will reach out to all communities to understand the issues and involve them in the policy decisions. If an auto driver can become CM, people should feel that it is their government, ” a key campaign planner told ET.

Starting from month-end, the entire party rank and file is expected to take the message to the masses and across all online and offline mediums.

Showtime Consulting is designing the Shinde campaign. The firm also planned the campaign for Conrad Sangma-led National People’s Party in Meghalaya. It is also working with Chandrababu Naidu.