Coming down heavily on Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray for drawing parallels between Maharashtra and West Bengal, former Chief Minister and now Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadanvis has termed the Dussehra speech of the former as a “frustrated outburst”. He was speaking to mediapersons at his city residence on Saturday. Fadnavis said, “It is a wrong claim by Thackeray that Mahavikas Aaghadi (MVA) Government was the rightful choice as people had the mandate for a BJP-Shiv Sena Government and rejected the other two parties of now part of the MVA alliance -- Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress. We are surprised by his praise for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. If Thackeray says, he wants to transform Maharashtra into Bengal, does he want to murder those who are against him? We vow to never let Maharashtra become West Bengal.”

 

“Unlike what Thackeray has claimed, people have not rejected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but they have rejected Congress, NCP and gave similar mandate to Shiv Sena. BJP won 70% seats and Shiv Sena got 45% of the seats while other political parties failed to perform in the assembly elections,” pointed out Fadnavis. Criticising the way Thackeray became Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Fadnavis said, “Everybody has ambition and everybody must have ambition. But one should not hide one’s ambition. Thackeray kept saying that he did not want to become Chief Minister but later on he accepted the post. I appeal him not to say that he did not have desire to become Chief Minister.” Making scathing attack on Thackeray’s claims that BJP misused Central agencies, Fadnavis said, “Today, drugs addiction has spread cancer in the society that has afflicted our youth. I want to ask whether this Government is favoring drug consumers, drug sellers. Should they not on the side of those who want to finish the evil. Had BJP been in a mood to use central agencies, half of Maharashtra ministers would have been in jail. But BJP, our PM believe in democracy and ethical politics.”