Chennai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray slammed the BJP over issues ranging from the commitment to Hindutva to the ongoing farmers’ agitation on Delhi borders.
Asking why the Union government has not conferred Bharat Ratna on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the Hindutva ideologue, Thackeray said in the Assembly that the BJP should not teach Hindutva to its former ally, the Shiv Sena.
Letters were sent (to the Centre) twice, seeking Bharat Ratna for Savarkar. Who confers Bharat Ratna? It is the right of the prime minister and a committee, Thackeray said.
The BJP has been targeting the Shiv Sena chief for âgiving upâ his Hindutva ideology for sharing power with the NCP and Congress. Among other things, it has questioned the `delay’ in renaming Aurangabad in central Maharashtra, named for the Mughal emperor, as Sambhajinagar.
“You don’t give Bharat Ratna to Savarkar and you preach us about renaming?,” the Chief Minister said, adding that Aurangabad will definitely be renamed.
He asked the opposition party who created roadblocks in Maharashtra’s proposal to rename the Aurangabad airport after Sambhaji Maharaj, the son of warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
Iron spikes were fixed in the path of farmers protesting near Delhi borders against the new farm laws, and their electricity and water supplies were cut, he said.
“Barbed wire fencing, which should have been erected along the border, was erected between farmers and Delhi… China would not have intruded had such arrangements been made there (along the border),” the Chief Minister said.
Asking if the protesting farmers were terrorists, he said the country was not the BJP’s âprivate propertyâ.
The Shiv Sena was not part of the freedom struggle and neither was the âparent organisationâ of the BJP, he said, apparently referring to the Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh.
Therefore, only chanting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ does not prove your love for the country. You don’t have the right to chant Bharat Mata Ki Jai if you are not going to give justice to people and if you are forcing farmers to protest on the streets, Thackeray said.
Farmers are waiting for their income to double as promised but it has not happened, he said, adding that âinstead, fuel prices have doubledâ.
He also asked the BJP to âgive up its thoughtâ of separating Vidarbha from Maharashtra. “We will not let Vidarbha separate from Maharashtra,” he said.
Despite being in power for six years at the Centre, the BJP did not bring a law to construct Ram temple at Ayodhya and it became possible only due to the Supreme Court verdict, Thackeray further said.