People were ‘cheated’ after voting BJP to power: Uddhav in Saamana

Continuing his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray accused the PM of focusing on other countries and not on India’s development, in the second of the three-part interview published in ‘Saamana’ on Tuesday.

On Monday, he had slammed the BJP for failing to check cow vigilantism, and said its idea of Hindutva was fake.

Speaking to the Marathi daily’s executive editor and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut, Thackeray said people of the country were “cheated” after they voted the BJP to power. I wouldn’t say people of the country made a mistake by electing the BJP in 2014, he said, but “the people were cheated” .

During the 40-minute interview, Thackeray countered Raut’s statement that Modi’s focus seemed to still be on Gujarat. “Is it? I don’t think his focus is on Gujarat. I feel it is more on other countries.” He added: “I have read news reports that 5,000 farmers have requested permission to kill themselves. The so-called development is going to destroy lives.”

Being part of the government since the past four years has helped his party gain “experience” of running the government, Thackeray said. “Most of the MLAs are new. What has to be done as a ruling party, how to implement the schemes is important, and that has been a learning experience.”

Thackeray claimed that had the Sena not joined the BJP-led Maharashtra government in 2014, the BJP would have formed a government by taking MLAs from the Congress and NCP.

The Sena may be a regional party, but it is an “original” party, the party chief said. Questioned about poaching corporators from his estranged cousin Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, he said: “My party was not formed by taking members from another party. Whoever was taken away to form the other party has come back.”

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