"Tributes to the great Balasaheb Thackeray on his jayanti. Courageous and indomitable, he never hesitated from raising issues of public welfare," the prime minister wrote on Twitter.
Thackeray always remained proud of Indian ethos and values, and continues to inspire millions, Modi said.
The Shiv Sena recently formed a government in Maharashtra with the support of the NCP and the Congress, breaking a decades-old alliance with the BJP.
Shiv Sena will be organising a mega event to celebrate ‘fulfilment of promise to Balasaheb’ of installing a chief minister from Sena.
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Thackeray was born in 1926 in Pune.
Thackeray, who had been an influential figure in Maharashtra, began his professional career as a cartoonist with the English language daily 'The Free Press Journal' in Mumbai, but left it 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 Samyukta Maharashtra (United Maharashtra) movement, which advocated the creation of a separate semantic state. Thackeray died in Mumbai in 2012 due to cardiac arrest