Mumbai bids tearful farewell to Bal Thackeray, city shuts down
the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, Opposition leader in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, his Madhya Pradesh counterpart Shivraj Singh Chauhan, and Union ministers Praful Patel and Rajiv Shukla.
Superstar Amitabh Bachchan, with whom Thackeray shared a long-standing bond, actor Nana Patekar, filmmakers Madhur Bhandarkar and Mahesh Manjarekar, industrialists Anil Ambani and Venugopal Dhoot and Zee's Subhash Chandra reached Shivaji Park hours ahead of the funeral.
Ex-Sena leader Chhagan Bhujbal, who got Thackeray arrested after becoming NCP's Deputy Chief Minister and home minister in a little known case after a bitter fallout, and Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam, who also broke away from the saffron party, were among those present.
In a measure of respect and influence Thackeray commanded over generations of Maharashtrians, the government allowed his funeral to take place at Shivaji Park, never a venue for such events, and accorded him a state funeral, the first public funeral after Bal Gangadhar Tilak's in 1920.
Governor K Sankaranarayanan and Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan placed wreathes on the Sena patriarch's body.
A contingent of Mumbai police gave a gun salute and buglers sounded the last post, a rare honour for somebody who never held any official position.
Even as elsewhere Mumbai turned into a ghost city with not a taxi or an autorickshaw in sight and markets, restaurants, cinema theatres and muliplexes closed, the Bandra-Shivaji Park stretch came alive with slogan-shouting Sena supporters.
As the firebrand leader's final journey began from "Matoshree", his son Uddhav could not control emotions and broke down atop the flower-bedecked
