As Shiv Sena looks to update its image, such campaigns are likely to be rarer.
The charismatic prime minister, Narendra Modi, has countered the Thackerays' own personal appeal while nearly three decades of Shiv Sena control of Mumbai's town hall has disappointed many in the city.
Thackeray says the Shiv Sena is working to train thousands of young people for jobs in sectors such as banking and in languages.
The Ranvir Sena militia, formed by men of the Bhumihar caste of landlords, is held responsible for a series of massacres of Dalits in the 1990s.
In state elections earlier this month, the Shiv Sena – the name means "warriors of Shivaji" (a former ruler of the region) – lost ground to the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which won power at a national level with a landslide victory in May.
But after three decades of dominance of municipal politics, the Shiv Sena is, like so much in India, in transition.
There is also an effort to forget the "moral policing" of the past, when Shiv Sena activists harassed couples in parks.
The portrait of the family patriarch, Bal Thackeray, a cartoonist turned rightwing populist politician who founded the Shiv Sena organisation in 1966 and led it until his death two years ago, is everywhere: hung in offices in slums, on the walls of cheap restaurants, beside temples.
Over the years, Shiv Sena has been repeatedly accused of fomenting violence, using street power to intimidate opponents and, during one period, imposing conservative moral codes.
Ranvir Sena and Pandey were blamed.
Mr Sena thinks the blow to eBay itself will be modest.
