By IANS
Mumbai : Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray Sunday criticized the Manmohan Singh government for reneging on the India-US nuclear deal and wondered why such a hue and cry was being made about it since “it would not affect the common man directly”.
Addressing his annual Dussehra rally at the Shivaji Park in central Mumbai, he also targeted the Congress-led governments in centre and Maharashtra for not showing concern for the common man.
Contrary to speculation, he went soft on Maharashtra Public Works Department Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who had quit the Shiv Sena to join the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) but is believed to be unhappy in the latter in recent months.
Thackeray merely said that Bhujbal was a friend of NCP chief Sharad Pawar. He also kept mum about his nephew Raj Thackeray, who left the Sena almost two years ago to form his party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
Thackeray targeted Maharashtra Revenue Minister Narayan Rane in his speech. “Rane did not leave the party, he was kicked out,” he asserted.
Rane, a former chief minister of Maharashtra in the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition in 1998, had walked out of the party in 2005 to join the Congress. He had been a Shiv Sena member for 39 years and his exit cost the party dearly in the 2005 Maharashtra Assembly elections.
It is no secret that Rane harbours chief ministerial ambitions, but that would not be possible without the blessings of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. The Sena is averse at the prospect of Rane returning as a Congress chief minister – the reason why Thackeray took verbal sniper-shots at the two leaders.
Virtually sounding the bugle for the state assembly elections due after exactly two years, Thackeray said that the Congress-NCP Democratic Front government in Maharashtra deserved to be removed forever and replaced by a Sena regime.
However, unlike his fiery rallies in the past, Sunday’s exercise proved to be a lacklustre event, prompting Thackeray, 80, to comment: “Nature is no longer supporting me, I am tired but my views are not…”