Nagpur, July 10: 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 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.
Attacking PM Modi over his silence on the violence in Manipur, Thackeray sought to know how rioting mobs there were getting weapons. (PTI)
