At odds with the BJP, despite being its ally at the Centre as well as in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena is preparing to launch yet another tirade against the BJP at its annual Dasara rally in Mumbai on Thursday.
According to party sources, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray’s speech at the rally will give a call to party activists to work towards grabbing power on its own, without the BJP. “Total saffronisation of the State will be the agenda and he will guide us how to work towards that aim in future,” a senior leader told The Hindu on the condition of anonymity.
Traditionally, the Dasara rally is considered one of the most important events of the Sena, as it tells the activists of the party’s future course. When in the Opposition, Thackerays used this platform to launch a severe attack on the successive Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) governments. Now a part of the ruling alliance and battling with issues of farmers’ suicides, price rise and drought, the Sena leadership is putting the onus on the BJP.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign trips and failure to give financial package to Maharashtra’s suffering farmers is also on Sena’s agenda, this Thursday. “His speech will revolve around our stand against Pakistan. We did what we had to and there is no remorse,” said the leader. Mr. Thackeray had felicitated his party’s activists a day after they threw black paint on Sudheendra Kulkarni of the Observer Research Foundation, for inviting the former Foreign Minister of Pakistan Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri to India.
