Why attack SRK but not Bachchan, Raj asks Sena

MNS chief Raj Thackeray has accused his former party, the Shiv Sena, of double standards.

MNS chief Raj Thackeray has accused his former party, the Shiv Sena, of double standards.

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The rebel nephew of Sena chief Bal Thackeray — who now heads his own Maharashtra Navnirman Sena — had for two weeks refrained from commenting on the Shiv Sena’s tirade against Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan.

On Thursday, however, he spoke to a group of journalists about the Shiv Sena’s violent protests over Khan’s comment that Pakistani cricketers should have been included in the Indian Premier League teams.

“They are demanding an apology from Khan for his remarks on the Pakistani players,” Raj said. “But we have just seen Amitabh sharing a dais with Pakistani artists and reciting poems. Why are they not asking Amitabh to apologise?”

Raj was referring to another Bollywood superstar, Amitabh Bachchan, who on Monday participated in a poetry reading as part of an ongoing effort to promote peace between India and Pakistan.

Adding that he had no personal motives for his statement, as he neither shared a friendship with Khan nor had anything against Bachchan, Raj hinted that the Bachchans’ long-standing friendship with the Thackerays had prompted the latter to look the other way.