Uddhav attacks BJP on Pak, Ayodhya, beef; rules out break-up

Mumbai, Oct 22: Breaking his silence over his party's strained ties with BJP, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray today attacked the coalition partner on issues like Pakistan, beef, Ram temple and inflation but ruled out walking out of the Maharashtra government any time soon.

He also said that the Dadri lynching incident brought shame to the country, and not Sena's campaign against cultural or sporting ties with Pakistan.

"If you can get along with (Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister) Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, then you should also listen to Shiv Sena," Uddhav said, addressing the Sena's traditional Dussehra rally at Shivaji Park in Dadar here this evening.

Referring to speculation of Sena parting ways with BJP, which has criticised it over the Shahryar Khan and Sudheendra Kulkarni incidents, he said, "We know for how long to remain in power. Allow us to work, now that we are in power."

Ridiculing BJP on the Ayodhya issue, he said, "We have been hearing: "Mandir wahin banayenge... Lekin tareekh nahi batayenge (we have been hearing that temple will be built, but not when it will be built)."

Voicing a strong Hindu agenda of the Sena, Uddhav said, "If Hindu is going to be finished, will this country survive?

"Declare this country as Hindu Rashtra and implement common civil code, instead of searching in people's homes for beef," he said in a reference to the lynching of a 50-year-old man in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh over beef eating rumours.

The country's image was maligned because of the Dadri lynching incident and not because of the ink attack on Kulkarni, he said, referring to Sena's protest against the launch function of the book penned by former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri in Mumbai.

"If you have the courage, then enter Pakistan," he said, claiming that Pakistan was keeping tabs on the Sena rally.

"Why speak on cow (beef), instead speak on inflation," the Sena president said. "Why is it not possible to control prices of essential commodities? A government that can't stop price rise is useless.

"If governments can fall on the issue of onion prices, one can't say what will happen over rising inflation," he warned, against the backdrop of skyrocketing prices of pulses.

PTI