A Maharashtra BJP leader’s alleged comments about Shiv Sena headquarters have sparked off a verbal feud between the two parties. On Monday, Shiv Sena warned that that the “BJP’s end is near”.
At a Bharatiya Janata Party function on Saturday, party’s MLC Prasad Lad allegedly said that the Shiv Sena Bhavan at Dadar in central Mumbai would be demolished if necessary.
Responding to Lad, the Shiv Sena said that whosoever will look scornfully towards Shiv Sena Bhavan, they “will be found floating in the Worli gutters”.
Notably, Lad has already rendered an apology, saying the media had misrepresented his words. He has also retracted the remarks.
In a video statement, Lad later clarified, “I have the highest regard for the late Balasaheb Thackeray and I consider Sena Bhavan as a sacred abode. How can I speak against the Sena Bhavan? What I meant was that the BJP is a major power and it will prove its might against political rival Sena in the upcoming BMC polls. Last month, the Sena had attacked our activists outside the Sena Bhavan. So it was a political reply. It was certainly not directed at the Sena supremo or the Bhavan”.
On Sunday, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray launched a veiled ‘Dabangg’ Sainik-style fighter attack, saying that they “are not scared of a slap” but those who dared to do so, would pay dearly for it.
Amid deepening divisions between the two former allies, Shiv Sena took a jibe at the BJP, saying “people who threaten the party are light-weight lowly ruffians, who simply just cannot digest the Sena flag fluttering atop the Sena Bhavan”.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray-led party, in edits in ‘Saamana’ and ‘Dopahar Ka Saamana’, said the chindi chors (small-time crooks), who call for attacking Sena Bhavan, are actually attempting to target the empire of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and the ‘Marathi Pride’ of ‘sons of the soil’, cemented by Hindu HridaySamrat Balasaheb Thackeray.
It also mentioned how the BJP was previously a party of “loyal grassroots workers working for the Hindutva ideology, but now it is full of outsiders (defectors from other parties), who have sidelined the original activists to the dump yard — That is why this party (BJP)’s end is looming near…”
While lambasting the BJP, the Sena noted that during the Babri riots in 1992-1993, the Sena Bhavan protected Hindus and Marathis who adhered to Hindutva, while “rioters of today were terrified of Pakistan and wet their mattresses”.
Shiv Sena is a party of justice and hope, and the BJP is one that has not lived up to its promises, said the edit.
As the Sena threw down the gauntlet, it said that those who reached Sena Bhavan on their own would not be allowed to return, “so they should ensure they come with a few who can carry them back on their shoulders”.
