Mumbai, June 1 (IANS) Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray Wednesday hit back at Ajit Pawar, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, who had attacked him Tuesday for doing nothing for the society.
In a scathing editorial in Wednesday’s party mouthpiece Saamna, Thackeray said Ajit Pawar has ‘let off gas’ from his mouth and left behind a stink.
‘What social service is he talking about? Every Hindu knows what the Shiv Sena’s contribution is to the country. He (Ajit) can even ask his uncle, Sharad Pawar in private, because he will speak the truth, in public he will say anything,’ Thackeray said.
Referring to Pawar Junior’s allegations that the Shiv Sena had not set up a single educational institution or factory or social organisation, Thackeray said the whole state knows the real story.
‘The Congress-Nationalist Congress Party has set up shops in the name of education, they have set up sugar cooperatives to fill up their own coffers, they founded cooperative banks and looted them, they sucked the farmers of the state and drove them to suicide,’ the edit stated.
Thackeray declared that the Shiv Sena was not formed for doing ‘this kind of social service’.
Ridiculing Ajit Pawar’s plan to bring up a proposal to rename Mumbai’s Dadar railway junction in memory of B.R. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Thackeray said why was the NCP targeting only that (Dadar) station.
‘Why can they not name the Bandra-Worli Sea Link after Ambedkar, or even better, one lane after Ambedkar and the other after Veer Savarkar? It would have been a fitting tribute to the two great sons of India,’ Thackeray suggested.
Instead, Thackeray pointed out, Sharad Pawar quickly suggested naming the Sea Link after Rajiv Gandhi and offered his services at the feet of (UPA chairperson) Sonia Gandhi. Thackeray demanded to know why couldn’t the Pawars think of renaming their stronghold, Baramati, after Ambedkar.
Thackeray said that the NCP’s love for Ambedkar suddenly ‘erupted’ after a storm unleashed in the state following the move by the Republican Party of India to join hands with the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Rubbishing other allegations, Thackeray suggested that Ajit Pawar’s ‘social services’ deserve to be published in a book by the state government’s publication department and he deserved a lifetime achievement award at the hands of ‘Mahatma’ Suresh Kalmadi.
Speaking at a public function in Ahmednagar Tuesday, Ajit Pawar – nephew of Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, said that all his life Thackeray ‘has sat in his Mumbai bungalow’ (Matoshri, in Bandra) and played politics in the name of Chhatrapati Shivaji by issuing all kinds of statements.
‘What has he actually done for society, for the people and the state?’ he said.
Incidentally, the SS-BJP-RPI combine is planning to take out a mammoth procession against the ruling Congress-NCP Democratic Front government June 9 for its failure on fronts like corruption, inflation and atrocities on Dalits.
