Mumbai: Uddhav Thackeray claimed the Shiv Sena had rotted during its 25-year alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party, while it has been decimated in its two-and-half-year alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party and Congress, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis quipped on Sunday.
Speaking at a ‘Vijay Sankalp’ rally in Kolhapur in the presence of Union Home Minister and senior colleague Amit Shah, he said the “traitors” had been taught a lesson and shown their place six months ago, apparently a reference to the split in the Shiv Sena, which brought down the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
Taking a swipe at Thackeray, the deputy CM said, “Those who said they rotted in the 25-year alliance with the BJP have now seen their party finished in two-and-half years after joining hands with the NCP, Congress (to form the Maha Vikas Aghdi post the 2019 Assembly poll results). They have been brought to the streets.”
In an apparent attack on Thackeray’s repeated utterances that the party was founded by his father late Bal Thackeray, who groomed its leaders, Fadnavis said “the Shiv Sena cannot be a property”.
“It is a school of thought. There can be a heir to a property or to some assets but not for thoughts. You have to put them in action and live up to these thoughts,” Fadnavis said.