Thackeray: BJP is playing ‘ugly politics’
MUMBAI: In his first public rally in Mumbai after becoming chief minister of Maharashtra, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday launched a withering attack on former political ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saying that the saffron party was playing “ugly politics” and deployed “A, B, and C teams” to mislead the people of the state and the nation with “fake Hindutva”.
Addressing nearly 100,000 party workers from across the state, Thackeray accused the BJP of trying to separate Mumbai from Maharashtra. The CM questioned leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis’ claim of being in Ayodhya when the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992, and took on the Bjp-led Centre over issues like inflation, and for holding up important infrastructure projects in Mumbai.
The rally held in the Bandra Kurla Complex’s on the
MMRDA grounds (BKC) kicked off Sena’s campaign for the upcoming local bodies polls slated to be held across the state, including in cities like Mumbai and Pune, later this year.
“BJP is playing ugly politics,” Thackeray said, adding that he wondered if “it was the same party that the Sena considered to be a friend for 25 years”.
“We didn’t recognise them then, but they are not our friend but our enemy. After the mask of Hindutva has come off, their true and perverse face is exposed. We still wonder if they are the same who were kept close by Balasaheb,” Thackeray said in a no-holds-barred attack on its former saffron ally.
“It turned out to be a ‘taunts bomb’. There will be a reply to it and it will be the befitting one,” Leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis tweeted in Marathi after the rally.
Thackeray’s rally comes in