Shiv Sena workers tried to kill me, says Kirit Somaiya

MUMBAI: The verbal war between the BJP and Shiv Sena escalated on Thursday with the Shiv Sena terming its ally’s protests against corruption in the Mumbai civic

MUMBAI: The verbal war between the BJP and Shiv Sena escalated on Thursday with the Shiv Sena terming its ally’s protests against corruption in the Mumbai civic body as hypocritical, and Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray planning the Sena’s first major show of strength on the streets against the BJP-led state government. BJP’s Mumbai northeast MP Kirit Somaiya alleged that the Sena workers who attacked him during the party’s Dusshera celebration function intended to kill him. In a letter to city police commissioner Datta Padsalgikar, he sought a probe into “the conspiracy to kill him.”

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Shiv Sena MLC Neelam Gorhe signalled a clear political agenda behind the BJP’s protests against corruption in the BMC, which the Sena and BJP have been ruling in an alliance for 20 years. “All this while, they never spoke about any corruption. It is only after their success in the assembly polls of 2014 that their bifocals suddenly changed,” she said, adding that Sena opposes the state government on policy issues of public interest while the BJP has just been harping on scams and corruption.

The BJP too kept up the sparring with BJP MP Kirit Somaiya claiming that the Shiv Sena workers, who allegedly assaulted him at a BJP’s Dussehra event for burning an effigy of corruption in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), were actually intending to murder him.

“More than a hundred persons were waiting in vehicles and buses outside the venue. It is clear they wanted to kill me or incapacitate me so that I cannot raise my voice against corruption in the BMC,” Somaiya said, adding that the mastermind has admitted to the assault on record and the police should take preventive action by arresting him.