“Which Shiv Sena are you talking about,” asked Union minister Piyush Goyal as he called out former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray for “abandoning” his party to stick to a surname.
Speaking at the Rising India Summit on Wednesday, Goyal, when asked about the political turmoil in Maharashtra, said the state had a stable and good government under the leadership of chief minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis.
He said several infrastructure and development projects that were stalled during Thackeray’s tenure had been completed. “You tell me, what can a chief minister who doesn’t even go to his office do?” Goyal asked.
The Union commerce minister, taking a dig at Thackeray, said it was the former CM who had abandoned his party. “The Shiv Sena is with us. It was Uddhav Thackeray who left his party. All Lok Sabha MPs are with us barring a few. Of these, I have heard two-three are keen to switch.”
Calling out dynastic politics in the country, Goyal said: “He [Uddhav Thackeray] can’t keep sitting with a surname. Dynastic rule won’t work in India now. People are sick of ‘Parivarwaad’. Merit will run this country now.”
In one of the biggest political upheavals in Indian politics, Uddhav Thackeray lost the chief minister’s crown when his ally-turned-bête noire Eknath Shinde engineered a coup with help from the BJP and split the Shiv Sena vertically.
After losing the party name and symbol to Shinde, Thackeray is gearing up to fight for control of the Sena’s properties and funds.
Not one to concede defeat, Thackeray recently warned the Election Commission that he will “never accept the decision”. “You can steal the Shiv Sena symbol and party name but you cannot steal the party. I want to send a message across to all those who have left. I want to especially tell the Election Commission that if you don’t have cataract in your eye, then please come and see what Shiv Sena is. This is ‘Chuna Lagao Aayog’. They are not fit to stay as Election Commission as they are slaves of the Centre,” he said.
Thackeray added: “The basis on which they have claimed that the Shiv Sena belongs to them is wrong. I can say that because the Shiv Sena was formed by my father and not by the Election Commission.”
The former chief minister said the EC was not trying to break the Sena but “you are trying to break the unity of the Marathi manoos, of the Hindus”.
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