Uddhav Thackeray, the leader of the Shiv Sena (UBT), claimed that some people were adopting the name Bal Thackeray because they know Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name will not work in Maharashtra. This was a thinly veiled jab at the Eknath Shinde faction.
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. 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.