Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray told his party's annual Dussehra rally at Shivaji Park that the opposition stands for a “regime change” and promised “acche din” once the BJP-led government at the Centre is dislodged.
Addressing the 60th anniversary of the rally on Tuesday, the former chief minister said staging protests was the right of the youth because “vote chori”, or vote theft, was happening with everyone, especially new voters. He said the young people who had hit the streets against alleged irregularities in the electoral process were not Naxalites but revolutionaries.
Thackeray criticised the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, saying around 130 million names had been deleted, and asked sarcastically whether all of them were Bangladeshi. He also attacked RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for preaching decorum to Gen Z.
On the drought, he said the state government had still not paid farmers two instalments of the Namo Kisan scheme, and mocked its announcement of ₹5,000 to each farmer, contrasting it with his claim that MLAs had been bought for ₹50 crore each.
BJP chief spokesperson Navnath Ban hit back, saying Thackeray should focus on keeping his own party and MLAs together before talking about a change of power. “Do not dream of capturing power under the pretext of voter lists,” he said. Thackeray also hit out at the police over their handling of young protesters, and warned that if officers continued to misbehave with demonstrators it would cost them in future. His remarks set the tone for a sharper political battle in Maharashtra in the weeks ahead.