MUMBAI: Known for bearing all the heaps of insults silently from his estranged uncle, Shiv Sena party chief Bal Thackeray, and not daring to speak against him, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray yesterday lost his cool and launched a strong onslaught against Thackeray for his statement that he made against Raj in an interview in the Sena mouthpiece Saamna on Sunday.
Raj’s outbursts, for the first time, came in line with the saying “so as you sow so you will reap,” and Thackeray got the strong hit from none other but from his own kin.
Blasting Thackeray for alleging that Raj had tried to hijack the Marathi issue raised by the Sena, Raj said “The Marathi issue is not the property of Sena. If that was so, as Sena claims, then the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would have said that Hindutva was their issue and not of the Sena. Any issues cannot be the sole propriety of anyone,” he sarcastically said.
Political analysts and politicians in the state were taken by surprise at the courage mustered by Raj to attack his own uncle.
Speaking at a press conference in the wake of the forthcoming polls to the Lok Sabha here yesterday at which Raj explained the strategy of his party for the elections. The MNS, he said, would contest the polls in 12 constituencies in the state.
“Some candidates would appeal for votes in the name of Marathi pride and Marathi people. But the fact is that it is only me who had raised the Marathi issue. Therefore, Marathi is our breath and Hindutva is our life. Now the rest have picked it up and are presenting it as their own issue,” Bal Thackeray had sarcastically hit at Raj in the Saamna interview.
Speaking about the joint BJP-Sena rally in Mumbai on Sunday, Raj said that the views and opinions of BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani and Bal Thackeray might match each other, but not with him.
