Nagpur: Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday took a veiled swipe at the Eknath Shinde faction by claiming some people were using the name of Bal Thackeray as they know Prime Minister Narendra Modi's name will not work in Maharashtra.
Addressing his party workers in Nagpur, the former chief minister asked them to reach out to people of the state and apprise them of the misdeeds of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which he claimed was taking the country towards dictatorship. He also attacked PM Modi for visiting Madhya Pradesh, where polls are to be held at the end of the year, but not touring Manipur, where violence since May 3 has killed over 100 persons, as yet.
Thackeray said the BJP had betrayed Hindutva by including those who had quit other parties, an apparent reference to the Shinde faction and the induction of nine Nationalist Congress Party MLAs in the state government on July 2, and splitting parties. "Our Hindutva is pure and clean and there is no place for such betrayal in our Hindutva," he said.
Without naming the Shinde faction, he said some persons were taking the name of Bal Thackeray as they know the name of Modi will not work in Maharashtra. The BJP, which claims to be the world's largest party, and its "supreme leader", referring to Modi, had to garner votes in the Assembly polls in Karnataka in May by invoking Bajrang Bali, Thackeray said. However, it did not work, he added.
The Shiv Sena split in June last year after a rebellion by Shinde. Since then both factions have claimed to be the true inheritor of the legacy of the party's founder Bal Thackeray. He said the BJP must now be called 'Bhrasht (corrupt) Janata Party' as it had levelled allegations against the NCP and was now sharing power with a faction of that party.
An NCRB report speaks of 40,000 girls going missing in Gujarat in the last years but PM Modi talks about investing in efforts for the development of girls when he visits his native state, Thackeray claimed. Thackeray said Shiv Sena (UBT) workers must hold dialogues with people (houn de charcha) to check if they are getting the benefits of welfare schemes as claimed by the ruling BJP.
Those who had opposed Emergency (1975) had imposed an undeclared one across the country by putting curbs on people and registering fake cases, he alleged. "You must speak up now or else we will not be able to speak after 2024. Our country is moving towards dictatorship like China, Russia and North Korea. Speak up now and get people to rise," he told his party workers.
Attacking PM Modi over his silence on the violence in Manipur, Thackeray sought to know how rioting mobs there were getting weapons. "Why is Manipur burning despite there being a double engine government there," he asked. The fight now was against those defaming Hindutva and to protect democracy, the Shiv Sena (UBT) chief said.
Thackeray also attacked Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and said the latter was a "kalank" (taint) on Nagpur as he had aligned with the NCP despite asserting he would never do so. Playing an old audio clip of Fadnavis stating that he would never join hands with the NCP, Thackeray said the BJP leader's "no means yes". He also attacked Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule for commenting against him.
Bawankule had, on Saturday, said Thackeray's temperament was to lie, the comment coming against the backdrop of the latter claiming the BJP had broken its promise to share the CM's post after the 2019 Assembly polls. "You are commenting on me. But you were denied a ticket (in the 2019 Assembly polls). You are not able to handle the reputation of the party nor that of dedicated workers. All your reputation is going away and you are not able to do anything about it. You are only interested in sitting on the post of state unit chief," Thackeray said taking a swipe at Bawankule. (PTI)
