I am not a traitor; you betrayed your father: Shinde

The Shinde camp stressed about establishing the legacy of Shiv Sena while playing old clips of Bal Thackeray, ensuring attendance of Thackeray family members and the leader late Anand Dighe, and invoking the late Sena supremo’s remarks in speeches

Mumbai: At the Bandra Kurla Complex’s (BKC) MMRDA ground on Wednesday, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who leads the rebel Shiv Sena camp, hit out at his former boss Uddhav Thackeray, saying he had betrayed his father by deviating from his ideology and Hindutva. Shinde spent most of his 90-minute speech rubbishing the allegation of ‘traitor’ levelled against them by his detractors, and also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and union home minister Amit Shah, for their decisions to safeguard the Hindutva ideology.

Mumbai, India - October 05, 2022: CM Eknath Shinde addressing the gathering during the Dussehra rally, at MMRDA Ground, Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), in Mumbai, India, on Wednesday, October 05, 2022. (Photo by Satish Bate/ Hindustan Times) (Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)

Shinde, who addressed the first Dussehra rally after the vertical split in the party claiming his faction was the real torchbearer of Bal Thackeray’s ideology, said that Uddhav Thackeray tried to “sell his father” for the sake of power.

The Shinde camp stressed about establishing the legacy of Shiv Sena while playing old clips of Bal Thackeray, ensuring attendance of Thackeray family members and the leader late Anand Dighe, and invoking the late Sena supremo’s remarks in speeches. The party also played Shiv Sena’s theme song and placed the chair used by Bal Thackeray in his last rally in Thane, at the centre of the dais.

Bal Thackeray’s eldest son Jaidev Thackeray, his estranged wife Smita, his other son, late Bindumadhav’s son Nihar, attended the rally and shared the dais.

“Balasaheb had said that he would never join hands with the Congress and NCP. His son, however, joined hands with the opposition party despite the fact that the mandate was for a BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, given in the 2019 assembly polls,” he said. Shinde also underlined the fact that in his stint as chief minister, for two-and-a-half years, Thackeray had stopped “calling Balasaheb as Hinduhridaysamrat just to appease ruling partners Congress and NCP”.

Shinde also added, Sena MLAs never wanted to join hands with Congress and NCP but followed the orders of the party leadership. “He (Uddhav) said that he wanted to see a Shiv Sainik become the chief minister of the state, but at the last moment he told me that NCP chief Sharad Pawar wanted him to become the CM. I backed and supported him, but he never trusted me or other party leaders. We had no option but to part ways to keep Balasaheb’s ideology alive,” Shinde said.

During his protracted speech, spectators came from across the state started leaving the venue.

Shinde even alleged that former Thane district chief Anand Dighe was ill-treated by the Shiv Sena leadership, accusing Thackeray of enquiring about Dighe’s property after his death rather than the fate of the party unit in Thane.

Shinde also backed the RSS and slammed political leaders who demanded to ban it, saying he was proud to be called a puppet in the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and union home minister Amit Shah. “They say that they are my handlers. But Modi and Shah have realised the dreams of Balasaheb Thackeray. Construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya and abrogation of Article 370 from Kashmir were dreams that came true because of them. On the contrary, you supported the beautification of the grave of terror convict Yakub Menon and shared cabinet with the people who have direct links with Dawood Ibrahim,” Shinde said.