Uddhav Thackeray elected Shiv Sena President

, Jan 23:

executive president

was today formally elected as the president of the party during a national executive meeting held in Mumbai.

"Uddhav Thackeray, 52, was unanimously elected the president of the party. Henceforth, all policy decisions of the party will be taken by him. He has been authorised to appoint a person in the party," senior party leader Subhash Desai said at Shiv Sena Bhawan, the party's headquarters at Dadar in central Mumbai.

Desai said election officer Balakrishna Joshi completed all the electoral processes to elect Uddhav as the party president.

From now on, there will be no post of Shiv Sena 'pramukh', which was held by late party supremo Bal Thackeray for over four decades, he said.

"Even the executive president's post will not be there in Shiv Sena," Desai added.

"In his address, Uddhavji urged party leaders to focus on 2014 state Assembly elections so as to win more seats to dethrone the Congress-NCP alliance," Desai said.

"A vacuum has definitely being created due to the demise of Bal Thackeray. However, we all have pledged that we will strengthen the organisation to fill the void," he added.

However, despite a huge demand to give a party post to Uddhav's son and Yuva Sena chief Aditya Thackeray, no particular post was given to him and he was retained as the youth wing president.

During a meeting held earlier, Uddhav and all senior Sena leaders paid homage to Bal Thackeray, who passed away on Nov 17 last year.

Later, addressing the party leaders, Uddhav said Shiv Sena will unitedly face challenges confronting the state.

"Uddhavji assured party leaders that no MP or MLA will defect from the party," Sena MP Sanjay Raut said, adding that he also said he will take Sena one step ahead than his father.

PTI