Taking a jibe at Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray for criticising Sachin Tendulkar for his “Mumbai for all” remark, Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said the cricketer has clean bowled Thackeray.
“Sachin has got Bal Thackeray out. Now, he ( Thackeray) may cry as much as he wants after the fall of the wicket but it is true that he has got out,” Khurshid said when asked on the controversy between Tendulkar and Thackeray.
“If you ask who do I like between Bal Thackeray and Sachin Tendulkar. My answer is, I like Sachin,” he added.
In an interaction with the media on completing 20 years in international cricket, Tendulkar had earlier said, “I am a Maharashtrian and I am extremely proud of that. But I am an Indian first. And Mumbai belongs to all Indians.”
Reacting sharply to it, Thackeray, in an editorial in Saamna , the Sena mouthpiece, said, “There was no need for him (Sachin) to take a cheeky single by making such remarks.”
He also alleged that Tendulkar “left the crease and moved to the pitch of politics by making these remarks, which have hurt Marathis.”
