Mumbai: Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction) leader Aditya Thackeray sparked a political storm during his election rally at Byculla when he slammed the BJP and Eknath Shinde’s faction. “We will take strong action against people looting and breaking Maharashtra, I will have them on blocks of ice, I will put them in gaol,” Aditya Thackeray promised. I promise you this.”
Last two years, we saw the BJP trying to divide Mas, Aditya Thackeray claimed but said the party had failed to do so “because we know Maharashtra dharma.” The key, he added, was that they had a different definition of Hindutva than the BJP. “This is the BJP’s Hindutva and our Hindutva will heat the hearth. Our Hindutva will burn homes,” Thackeray said, contrasting the two ideologies.
But Shiv Sena leader said that there’s no question of taking revenge in the upcoming election but of survival. The BJP had a history of exploiting and sowing communal riots, he said. He said it was not just about keeping the BJP at bay, but deciding how far. Thackeray said various BJP teams will come to campaign in Byculla and they are experts at sowing discord. “He also described his opponents as ‘traitors’.”
The seat is a byculla battlefield in which Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) candidate Yamini Jadhav and Shiv Sena (Uddhav faction) candidate Manoj Jamsutkar are fighting. Muslim voters form a large part of the constituency and a total of 10 Muslim candidates are in the fray. If the Muslim vote splits, the influence of the business community has a good chance of growing. On this note, it is being conducted by Yamini Jadhav’s campaign to win over Marwari and Gujarati voters and big BJP leaders from this community have been supporting her.
The words of Aditya Thackeray have likely poured fuel on an already raging electoral battle in Maharashtra. The contest for the Byculla seat is turning into a realjuggle as different factions begin reaching out to different voter groups in order to bring them to their side in the run up to the contest. The ideological confrontation in the landscape of Maharashtra’s politics is witnessed at the ideological clash owed to the sharp criticism exercised by Thackeray against the BJP and his distinct idea of Hindutva.
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