Mumbai: Breaking his
silence over his party's strained ties with BJP, Shiv Sena presidentUddhav Thackeray on Thursday attacked the
coalition partner on issues like Pakistan, beef, Ram temple and inflation but
ruled out walking out of the Maharashtra government any time soon.
He also said that the
Dadri lynching incident brought shame to the country, and not Sena's campaign
against cultural or sporting ties with Pakistan.
"If you can get
along with (Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister) Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, then you
should also listen to Shiv Sena," Uddhav said, addressing the Sena's
traditional Dussehra rally at Shivaji Park in Dadar here this evening.
Referring to speculation
of Sena parting ways with BJP, which has criticised it over the Shahryar Khan
and Sudheendra Kulkarni incidents, he said, "We know for how long to
remain in power. Allow us to work, now that we are in power."
Ridiculing BJP on the
Ayodhya issue, he said, "We have been hearing: "Mandir
wahin banayenge... Lekin tareekh nahi batayenge (we have been hearing
that temple will be built, but not when it will be built)."
Voicing a strong Hindu
agenda of the Sena, Uddhav said, "If Hindu is going to be finished, will
this country survive? Declare this country as Hindu Rashtra and implement
common civil code, instead of searching in people's homes for beef," he
said in a reference to the lynching of a 50-year-old man in Dadri in Uttar
Pradesh over beef eating rumours.
The country's image was
maligned because of the Dadri lynching incident and not because of the ink
attack on Kulkarni, he said, referring to Sena's protest against the launch
function of the book penned by former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri
in Mumbai.
"If you have the
courage, then enter Pakistan," he said, claiming that Pakistan was keeping
tabs on the Sena rally. Why speak on cow (beef), instead speak on
inflation," the Sena president said. "Why is it not possible to
control prices of essential commodities? A government that can't stop price
rise is useless. If governments can fall on the issue of onion prices, one
can't say what will happen over rising inflation," he warned, against the
backdrop of skyrocketing prices of pulses.
"First give
protection to dal (rising prices) and then to Pakistan," Uddhav said,
adding, "why should it cause stomach ache for BJP if we speak against
Pakistan."
On Sena's opposition to
Ghulam Ali's scheduled concert in Mumbai, he said, "I told organisers that
I like songs of Jagjit Singh and Ghulam Ali. However, I also reminded them
about killing of Indian soldiers by Pakistan." On the Sena workers' ink
attack on former BJP ideologue Kulkarni for hosting Kasuri, he said, "We
applied ink to the red monkey."
Uddhav also criticised
Union ministers VK Singh over his remark on the killing of Dalit children and
Kiren Rijiju for his comment on north Indians.
"Our Hindutva
entails calling Param Veer Chakra awardee Abdul Hameed a hero, a soldier, a son
of the soil who saved Kashmir from Pakistani Army," he said. MIM leader
Owaisi bowed his head at Aurangzeb's burial place, Uddhav said, adding "I
am ready to bow my head at the 'kabr' of Abdul Hameed."
"We won't leave
Marathi manoos and Hindutva at any cost," he said, and recalled that the
then President Zail Singh had thanked the late Bal Thackeray for protecting
Sikhs in Mumbai and Maharashtra when anti-Sikh riots broke out in 1984.
"Balasaheb also
protected Kashmiri Pandits and Amarnath pilgrims," Uddhav said.
"Let me know now if
you agree to my continuing in the post of Sena chief. I will step down if you
say so," Uddhav said, putting the question to the crowd.
Aurangzeb Road in Delhi
was named after APJ Abdul Kalam, similarly Aurangabad in Maharashtra should be
renamed as Sambhajinagar, he said. Uddhav also paid tributes to Veer Savarkar,
and asked, "Did any Congressman suffer for freedom like him."
Savarkar should get Bharat Ratna, he demanded.
"Those who objected
to death penalty for Yakub Memon committed contempt of court," he said.
He expressed disgust
over prolonged incarceration of Lt Col Prasad Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya Singh
Thakur in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, saying "Hang them if they are
guilty, but prove their guilt first."
He also said killers of
Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar should be hanged if they are guilty
"but first prove charges against them".
On NCP chief Sharad
Pawar's statement that the Sena of yore doesn't exist now, Uddhav said,
"Pawar, who appeased Sonia Gandhi for 15 years, should not teach us self
respect."
Sena leader Sanjay Raut,
who also addressed the rally, taunted BJP over the treatment meted out to LK
Advani.
"People look up to
you as long as you are CM or PM. We see what is the condition of L K Advani
today," he said.
Referring to the
'shastra puja' at the rally venue on the occasion of Dussehra, he said,
"Next year, there should be an AK-47 and a couple of canons here. Our
fight is against Pakistan.
"Also keep a tin of
oil paint. That is also a weapon. The whole world recently saw that," Raut
said, in an apparent reference to the ink attack on Kulkarni.
"You (BJP-led
government) are laying red carpet for Pakistan which is killing our
soldiers," he said.
On the criticism over
his own visit to Pakistan some years ago, Raut said, "I had gone with
Atalji (former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee), not during UPA regime and I had
discussed the Pak trip with Balasaheb.
"Pakistan is a part
of akhanda (united) Hindustan, which was cut off from us with
machination," he said, adding if 50 Sena MPs get elected, "we will
drag not only Dawood Ibrahim but also Nawaz Sharif" to India.
"It was the dream
of Balasaheb that there should be a Shiv Sena chief minister in Maharashtra.
Making a Sena leader PM of the country will be the real tribute to
Balasaheb," he said.
Senior Sena leader
Ramdas Kadam, who is also a cabinet minister in the state government, spoke of
'rising population' of Muslims in India. "How come the population of only
Muslims increased? Is only a single-point agenda being undertaken," he
asked said.
On state BJP chief
Raosaheb Danve's assurance that protection will be given if an Indo-Pak cricket
match is held in Mumbai, he said, "Danve should check (Prime Minister)
Modi's statements in the past."
Kadam also referred to
the "opposition from some cats to holding Sena rally at Shivaji
Park". One such "cat" lives nearby, Kadam said, in an apparent reference
to MNS chief Raj Thackeray, whose residence borders the Shivaji Park.
Before the rally, BJP
minister Prakash Mehta went to the Thackeray family residence Matoshree in
suburban Bandra and met Uddhav. Mehta presented Uddhav a frame which had
currency notes from Re 1 to Rs 1000 denomination and also the birth dates of
the late Bal Thackeray, his wife Meenatai, Uddhav and Aaditya Thackeray.
Soon after his arrival
at Shivaji Park with the wife Rashmi and son Aaditya, the Sena president
offered tributes at the memorial of his father.
The rally comes against
the backdrop of Sena's strident campaign against visiting Pakistani
personalities, and also the Kolhapur and Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation
polls in Maharashtra, due on November 1. The Sena and BJP are fighting the
civic polls separately.
The simmering tension
between the Sena-BJP was evident on Wednesday when the local Shiv Sena leaders
put up a poster outside the party headquarters showing the picture of Modi
bowing before Bal Thackeray.
While the Sena distanced
itself saying that it's not an official poster and removed it, Manohar Joshi,
senior Sena leader and former Lok Sabha Speaker, had said, "The party
workers have given a message (to BJP) through the poster."
Shiv Sena had boycotted
all the functions at which Prime Minister Narendra Modi was present in Mumbai
on October 11. Uddhav got the invitation for the Prime Minister's function a
day before, and didn't attend it.
Sena leaders had slammed
the BJP for not taking the party in confidence for the programme and taking all
credit for the metro and Ambedkar memorial projects.
On Monday, the Sena
activists barged into Board of Control for Cricket in India office in Mumbai
and gheroed its chairman Shashank Manohar demanding cancellation of talks on
Indo-Pak cricket series. On this, Uddhav said at the rally, "We protested
in a democratic manner at Manohar's office and did not spill blood."
The Sena is the junior
partner in the Maharashtra cabinet. However, in the cash-rich civic body of
Mumbai, BJP is the junior partner.
