Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday strongly hit back at Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s ‘Aurangzeb Fan Club’ jibe and termed the BJP leader a political descendant of Ahmad Shah Abdali.
Abdali is the Afghan king who defeated the Marathas in the third battle of Panipat.
Thackeray went on to accuse the BJP of indulging in ‘political jihad’ by breaking political parties to form government in various states.
"If Muslims are with us after we explained to them our Hindutva, then we are (according to the BJP) the Aurangzeb Fan Club. Then what you are doing is power jihad,” he said, addressing party workers at the Shiv Sankalp rally in Pune.
Amit Shah, addressing a BJP rally in the city last week, had termed the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance in Maharashtra the ‘Aurangzeb fan club’ and Thackeray as the club leader.
"Maha Vikas Aghadi is Aurangzeb fan club. This Aurangzeb fan club cannot ensure India's security. Uddhav Thackeray is the leader of this Aurangzeb Fan club. This Fan Club cannot make Maharashtra and India safe,” Shah had said.
Thackeray, in his speech, took potshots at the Narendra Modi government at the Centre on a range of issues including leakage in parliament building and the NEET-UG question paper leak.
"This government (at the Centre) is a leakage government,” he mocked.
Accusing the BJP of creating divisions among castes, Thackeray further said: "This is not the Hindutva taught to us by Chhatrapati Shivaji. This (the one practised by the BJP) must have been taught by Aurangzeb which we do not believe in. Our Hindutva is the one that takes forward the Maharashtra dharma of Chhatrapati Shivaji”.
