Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) President Raj Thackeray
Credit: PTI File Photo
Kankavali (Maharashtra) : MNS president Raj Thackeray on Saturday claimed that his estranged cousin and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray would not have said anything against the BJP if the saffron party had accepted his demand of Maharashtra chief minister's post.
Speaking at a Lok Sabha election campaign rally here for Union minister Narayan Rane, BJP candidate from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha constituency, Raj also justified his support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing the construction of the Ram Temple and abrogation of Article 370 among other reasons.
Notably, while the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief had supported Modi in 2014, he had launched scathing attack on the prime minister in rally after rally before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
'I did not agree with (Modi's) stand (in 2019). It was not that I wanted something in return (for supporting him again now),' Raj said in his first rally in support of the BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP alliance in Maharashtra.
'If the BJP had accepted your (Uddhav Thackeray's) proposal of sharing the chief minister's post for two-and-half years, would you have said the things you are saying today? You would have kept mum for power,' Raj said.
Uddhav Thackeray broke off his party's decades-long alliance with the BJP after the state polls in 2019 as the saffron party was not ready to share the CM's post with him.
Raj, meanwhile, countered Shiv Sena (UBT)'s charge that investments were being diverted from Maharashtra, asking what Uddhav did when he was an ally of the ruling BJP from 2014 to 2019, and later when he was chief minister from 2019 to 2022.
'You (Uddhav) were in power for seven and a half years. Why did investments go out? Why were you quiet?' the MNS chief asked.
Raj also attacked Uddhav for opposing big-ticket projects like the Jaitapur Nuclear Power plant and an oil refinery in Konkan on the pretext that the coastal region's ecology will be damaged.
There were instances where sitting Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg MP of Shiv Sena (UBT) Vinayak Raut (who has been renominated by his party) would oppose a project, while local MLA of the same party would back it, he claimed.