Saturday, Apr 20, 2024 | Last Update : 12:17 AM IST
Alliance will last 25 more years: Sena
Replying to a query if he too had become a ‘chowkidar’ after the alliance with the BJP, Thackeray said he was just a common man.
Mumbai: After joining hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has said that the Sena-BJP alliance will survive for another 25 years. However, he has sounded a word of caution to BJP saying, “We will not betray you, you shouldn’t betray us.”
Talking about the renewed bonhomie between the Sena and BJP, Mr Thackeray said, “The relationship lasted for 25 years. But if we do not forget why there was conflict in the last five years, then it will last for another 25 years.”
Mr Thackeray, in his first major interview in the party mouthpiece Saamana after the alliance was forged, tried to defend his decision to join hands with the BJP. According to him, the decision to ally with the BJP once again was on the basis of Hindutva.
Referring to his statement that the Sena “rotted in the 25 years of alliance with the BJP”, he said, “After the alliance, we were careless. Shiv Sena chief (Bal Thackeray) then toured the entire state to strengthen the party. But after the alliance, we got lax. Now, this carelessness is no more there. Should we not take our party to other places as well? Because Sena is not a party but an ideology,” he said.
However, the Sena chief did not agree with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Congress-mukt Bharat” (Congress-free India) slogan. “I never said anything about Congress-mukt country. I never said that finish the Congress because the opposition should remain. I do not have such petty imagination. That said, the condition of the Congress today is bad; it does not have the tall leaders it earlier had like Narasimha Rao.”
Replying to a query if he too had become a ‘chowkidar’ after the alliance with the BJP, Mr Thackeray said he was just a common man.
“I am a Shiv Sainik. I don’t need to separately be called a chowkidar after being a Shiv Sainik. A soldier is a soldier who safeguards the common man and fights for their rights. I don't need to separately become a chowkidar,” Mr Thackeray said.
