MUMBAI: Uddhav Thackeray walked into Shivaji Park with a message for the young. The Shiv Sena (UBT) chief told his party's Dussehra rally on Tuesday that the country was awake and that power would change hands.
Thackeray said 12 years of what he called bad governance, and the arrogance of union home minister Amit Shah, had stirred citizens, Gen Z among them. "India is changing, awakening, and there will be a regime change in India," he told party workers, adding that his party and Maharashtra would play a central role.
The attack came the same day deputy chief minister and Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde addressed his own Dussehra rally at the NESCO grounds in Goregaon, where he accused the Opposition of conspiring against the government with foreign backing.
Thackeray trained his fire on the BJP. He said the party "runs campaigns to confuse people" and called his own party's biggest mistake its alliance with the BJP in 1989. "We lost 25 years in alliance with these people," he said. "They used the Hindutva promoted by Bal Thackeray and later dumped our party."
He accused the BJP of "stealing votes and attacking constitutional institutions" and of branding anyone who questioned it as cockroaches and Urban Naxals. "The Gen Z kids protesting against the BJP regime and taking out a flag march are not terrorists or Naxals but revolutionaries," he said, adding that the young revolutionaries who fought British rule, and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and his colleagues, were the same age as today's protesters.
Thackeray also went after the police over their handling of students and protesters, and at RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for preaching to Gen Z. "The police brutally handled young protesters and misbehaved with girls, but Bhagwat is teaching decorum and civilised manners to Gen Z," he said, asking whether the RSS's opposition to the tricolour still continued.
Citing the recent firing at actor Tiger Shroff, allegedly by members of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, he asked how the attackers reached the spot with weapons. He said Bishnoi was lodged in a Gujarat jail "with the blessings of" Amit Shah and dared chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to bring him to Maharashtra, accusing Fadnavis of defaming the state through an affidavit saying it was full of Urban Naxals.
BJP chief spokesperson Navnath Ban hit back. "Before talking about a change of power, Uddhav Thackeray should focus on saving his own party and keeping his MLAs together," he said. Sena (UBT) leaders, including Sushma Andhare, were present at the rally.