Thackeray-Fadnavis lash out at each other in rallies

Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis used the rallies they were addressing on Saturday to engage in a bitter war of words. While Thackeray called Fadnavis a shameless and worthless person and promise-breaker, Fadnavis returned the fire, saying Thackeray was hallucinating. “Public life in Maharashtra is not a Salim-Javed script,” he remarked. “You will get tit for tat.”
Thackeray was addressing a rally at Antop Hill for Anil Desai, the Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate from Mumbai South Central. Attacking Fadnavis and Narendra Modi, he said that the BJP had cheated him. “A little before the 2019 polls, Amit Shah had come to our house in Bandra where the power-sharing deal was worked out,” he said. “A few days later, Fadnavis visited. He said he would groom my son Aaditya to be the next CM of Maharashtra. I asked him whether he would work under such a young person, and he replied that he knew a lot about finance and would go to Delhi to join the union government.”
Reiterating how the BJP had cheated him, Thackeray said that when Fadnavis came with Amit Shah to the late Bal Thackeray’s room, Shah made him wait outside. “For us, Balasaheb’s room is a very holy place,” he said. “The promise of power-sharing was given to us in that room and later broken.”
Hitting back at Uddhav in a rally he was addressing in the interiors of the state, Fadnavis said, “Thackeray may have gone mad and might be hallucinating but I am not. He has been changing his stand on the so-called promise given to him. After losing power, he has lost his mental balance.” The deputy CM added that he had merely suggested to Thackeray that Aaditya contest the elections but let alone chief minister, did not even want to make him a minister in his government. In his reaction posted on X.com, Fadnavis said: “We respect Balasaheb Thackeray who never went back on his words. He never lied, was never selfish. You are fooling yourself by presenting a new script every day. Maharashtra’s social life and development is not a Salim-Javed script. Since you have nothing to do with social life and development, don’t keep preparing such scripts. You will get tit for tat.” At the rally, Thackeray also trained his guns on Modi and Shah, saying that they were taking business away from Mumbai to Gujarat. “They are jealous of Maharashtra,” he declared. “The time has come to send Modi back to Gujarat.”
Thackeray said his government was diverting BMC funds to MMRDA to complete metro projects. “MMRDA is meant to get funds from the state and Centre, but the state is draining BMC coffers by paying ₹3,000 crore for metro projects,” he said. “At this rate, development in Mumbai will stop and there will be no money to even pay sweepers. Once I come to power, I will take Mumbai out of MMRDA limits.”
Reacting to Thackeray’s , state BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule remarked that if a contest was held, Uddhav Thackeray would be the biggest nalayak.