Mumbai: Eknath Shinde had a line ready for the opposition's regime-change pitch. "I don't just give bhashan, I give ration," the deputy chief minister said at the Shiv Sena's Dussehra rally at the NESCO grounds in Goregaon on Tuesday.
He dedicated the event to farmers hit by drought, and used it to answer critics with numbers. The party had dispatched 100 trucks of foodgrains, he said, and the Rs 5,000 already announced was only interim relief, not final compensation. "Farmers have the first right over the state's treasury," Shinde said. He added that PM Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah had reviewed the drought and assured support.
The party, he said, had begun distributing 25,000 bicycles to girls from poor families and 25,000 sewing machines to women, and would hold mass weddings for farmers' daughters.
His political attack was blunt. Without naming anyone, Shinde alleged that opposition parties were spreading anarchy with foreign backing. "They stay in Hindustan and speak the language of Pakistan. This is unfortunate and an anti-India act," he said. He called the INDIA bloc a "ten-headed Ravan" that should be destroyed, and rejected the call for a change of power. "This is Hindustan, not Bangladesh, Nepal or Sri Lanka. An elected government cannot be toppled through political rhetoric."
On the vote-theft charge, Shinde turned the clock back to 2019. The undivided Shiv Sena fought the election with the BJP and then formed a government with the Congress and NCP, he said. "That was the real vote theft, a robbery of the people's mandate." Taunting Uddhav Thackeray, he added that when the regime changed within the Sena, Thackeray "did not even come to know".
Shinde also criticised Rahul Gandhi for leading a march to the Supreme Court, calling it an insult to the institution, and defended the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. "When they win, the EVM is good and when they lose, the EVM is bad," he said.
He listed his party's strength: 15 MPs, 74 legislators, 1,100 corporators and 63 civic body presidents. Former high court judge Srihari Davare joined the Sena at the rally. And the warning to the opposition: "If the nationalists come down on the streets, they will have to run for their life."