Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray has come out in support of former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Nupur Sharma and questioned why no action had been taken against All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader Akbaruddin Owaisi for his derogatory comments on Hindu deities.
Addressing MNS functionaries on Tuesday, his first public appearance after a hip surgery in June, Thackeray was also unsparing in his attack on Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray. He asked how his estranged cousin could stake claim to the chief minister’s post for two-and-a-half years when the Sena-BJP alliance had settled on a formula to give it to the party with more MLAs.
The MNS president also announced that he would launch a state-wide tour after the Ganesh festival and told party workers that they would fight the coming local body elections with full strength.
“Nupur Sharma said something,” Thackeray said, in a reference to her comments about Prophet Muhammad that sparked an international outrage. “She was expelled. Everyone apologised. [But] I supported her. She did not say something from her mind, but something that happened. Watch Zakir Naik’s interview. Naik is a Muslim. He had said the same thing in his interview that Sharma said. Nothing happened to Naik…no one asked him to apologise.”
The MNS chief pointed to how one of the two Owaisi brothers (Hyderabad MLA Akbaruddin) made disparaging comments on Hindu deities and referred to them as “manhoos.” “No one is asking him to apologise in this country…no government is willing to restrain him.”
Without naming his estranged cousin, Thackeray questioned the basis of his claim that the BJP had agreed to split the chief minister’s post with Sena for half of the five-year term. He also asked why Uddhav had not objected when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and union home minister Amit Shah had referred to deputy chief minister (and then chief minister) Devendra Fadnavis as their chief ministerial nominee.
“The talks about this [the formation of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party] may have been under way from the beginning,” he said.
“The politics that is under way in Maharashtra is not good for it…this is not politics, but a temporary adjustment for power,” he alleged, without naming chief minister Eknath Shinde.
The MNS chief said that his decision to leave Sena in 2005 was unlike that of other party rebels as he had met his uncle and late Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and told him his decision before walking out. “I did not betray anyone or stab them in the back. I did not join another party but formed my own outfit.”
Refuting the charges that he and his party did not take any protest to their logical end, he said, “Show me one agitation which we have abandoned midway.”
The agitation seeking transparency in toll contracts which led to around 65 toll plazas being shut down was a case in point, Thackeray added.