MUMBAI: Ridiculing Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo and federal Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, the Shiv Sena working president Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said that how can Pawar handle the affairs of the prime minister of the country when he has failed to handle a simple post of an federal agriculture minister.
Speaking at a function to release the Sena’s manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections at Hotel Trident, he said that the Sena can never go in for an alliance with the NCP. “I would like a Marathi person to become the prime minister of the country, but at the moment there is no suitable person for that post,” he sarcastically stated.
Uddhav released the manifesto which surprisingly sidelined its core issues of Hindutva and construction of temple at the razed site in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. Instead, the manifesto mentioned issues like terrorism, farmers problems, energy, justice to the “sons of the soil”, Maharashtra-Karnataka border issue, mill-workers’ settlement, and inflation.
Uddhav mocked at his estranged cousin Raj Thackeray, chief of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), saying that he did not wish to take such insignificant questions about Raj at the function. Uddhav alleged that Pawar was responsible for the pathetic conditions of the farmers in the state and they were angry with Pawar. In view of this factor, the Sena was not interested in forging alliance with the NCP, he said.
To a question as to why the Ayodhya temple issue, which was in the manifesto of the BJP, was missing from the Sena manifesto, Uddhav said what’s wrong if the temple is constructed.
BJP had incorporated the temple issue in their manifesto and we have no opposition to it. But more important issues of the state than that of the temple have been included in our manifesto, Uddhav added. Uddhav also demanded the immediate arrest of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief and federal Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav for threatening to kill Varun Gandhi, BJP’s candidate from Pilhibit in Uttar Pradesh.
Uddhav said that there cannot be two sets of law. If Varun can be arrested under the stringent National Security Act (NSA) for making inflammatory speech, then the same should also apply to Lalu who threatened to kill Varun by crushing him under a road roller for making anti-Muslim speeches and hurting the sentiments of the Muslim community.
