Uddhav Thackeray dares BJP to disclose details of funds received through electoral bonds

Yavatmal: Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday targeted the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over electoral bonds scheme, and dared it to disclose the details of funds it received through this exercise.

He was addressing a public meeting at Umarkhed in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district.

“BJP should declare the funds it collected under the electoral bonds scheme. My party Shiv Sena (UBT) will also declare the funds. Shiv Sena (UBT) also got electoral bonds, but it did not receive these donations by scaring the donors of the Enforcement Directorate or through grant of favours to them,” Thackeray said.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday said he was mocked for his 2019 assembly poll campaign punchline “I will be back” but asserted he returned to power after breaking two parties, a reference to the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Referring to it during his address, Thackeray said, “See what kind of worthless thinking they have. He (Fadnavis) should be put behind bars for robbing other peoples’ property and showing it as their own wealth.”

“This proves that Eknath Shinde and others left Shiv Sena not because they felt Uddhav Thackeray went away from the ideology of Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray. It is not like that…They went because Fadnavis took them away from Shiv Sena,” Thackeray said.

The Shiv Sena split in June 2022 after Eknath Shinde rebelled along with several MLAs, while the NCP broke into two factions in July last year after Ajit Pawar joined the ruling alliance in the state.

Last week, the RSS presented an annual report, wherein it alleged that attempts to spread anarchy under the pretext of farmers’ agitation have been restarted.

Speaking on that, Thackeray said, “It means they do not want to give minimum support price (MSP) to farmers, not waive their loans and decide import-export policy as per the wish of the government and suggestions of the industrialist friends.”

“If farmers hit the streets to agitate for their rights and justice, then they are tagged as separatists and those spreading anarchy. If you call farmers as separatists and anarchists, if they ask for justice then what kind of Hindutva do you follow? I do not give any value to this kind of Hindutva and I do not approve of it,” he added.

Thackeray also took a dig at the BJP over its ‘Mera Parivar’ campaign launched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, and asked whether farmers were not part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘parivar’ (family).