'Had I Made Shinde the CM in 2019...': Uddhav's First Interview After MVA's Fall

Training guns on Eknath Shinde & the Bharatiya Janata Party, Uddhav Thackeray alleged a plot to finish Shiv Sena.

File photo of Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde with former CM and Shiv Sena chiefUddhav Thackeray.

(Photo: (Photo: Facebook/Uddhav Thckeray))

In a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Eknath Shinde-led rebel MLAs of the Shiv Sena, former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday, 26 July, said that the fall of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was plotted by his own people while he was in the hospital recovering from his spinal surgery.

Training guns on now Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde in an interview to the Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana', Thackeray said that the rebel leader's ambitions were insatiable.

Calling the rebel party leaders "rotten leaves" of a tree, Thackeray said that elections would make it clear whether the people supported him or the rebel faction.

Thackeray's Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, in coalition with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress, fell last month after Shinde engineered a rebellion within the Shiv Sena and later joined hands with the BJP to become the chief minister of the state.

Here are some key highlights of Thackeray's interview with Saamana:

• I was betrayed by the ones that I trusted. The same people are now claiming that the Shiv Sena has abandoned Hindutva. I want to ask them: the BJP broke the alliance with the Shiv Sena in 2014. Did we abandon Hindutva then? We did not.

• I never had a personal ambition of becoming the chief minister. The betrayers know what happened before this government was formed, how we were backstabbed, and why we had to form the MVA.

• I was the chief of the party, the head of this family, but I was motionless after my surgery. Meanwhile, a few others were moving in a different direction. I will never forget how hurt I was by this. I made him (Eknath Shinde) take charge of the party, trusted him with the second spot in the party, and trusted him with the party, but he betrayed that trust. They steered in the opposite direction while I lay motionless in the hospital.

• If the BJP had done what was decided in 2019, everything would have worked out smoothly. They would not have had to travel across the country behind my MLAs. I have heard that thousands of crores were spent on this operation, be it on flights, hotels, etc.

• The BJP wants to finish the Shiv Sena. If they had kept their promise of sharing the chief minister's post for 2.5 years each, the BJP would have had a chief minister for at least 2.5 years. They would not have had to do this drama of 'giving the CM post to the Shiv Sena.' Now they claim that our Shiv Sena is not the real one. They are not satisfied with this split, they want to finish the party.

• They often ask the difference between the Shiv Sena's and the BJP's Hindutva. The Shiv Sena has done politics to strengthen Hindutva, but the BJP uses Hindutva to strengthen their politics.

• I challenge them to separate the Shiv Sena and the Thackerays and ask for votes. But don't use my father's picture while asking for those votes.

• If I would have made him (Eknath Shinde) the chief minister back then, who knows what he would have done? His hunger is insatiable. First, he wanted to become the chief minister, and now he wants to become the Shiv Sena chief? He is comparing himself to Bal Thackeray? These are demonic desires. His greed has no limits.

• You claim that we abandoned Hindutva because we sided with the Shiv Sena, then how do you explain siding with the Muftis? Does Mehbooba Mufti ever chant 'Vande Mataram' or 'Bharat Mata ki Jai'? You are in power with Nitish Kumar in Bihar. Is Nitish Kumar a Hindutvavaadi? He had once called for a 'Sangh-free India'. We never made any such calls.

• Looks like I put too much trust in some Sena workers and leaders. It is my fault to have trusted them for such a long time.

• The BJP is not only trying to break the Shiv Sena but also trying to appropriate great leaders of other parties. The way they tried to appropriate Sardar Patel from the Congress, they are doing the same thing with my late father, Balasaheb Thackeray, who founded the Shiv Sena.