No party should be given brute majority: Uddhav Thackeray

Shiv Sena-UBT President and Maharashtra's former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday, 24 October, said that India needs a strong government at the Centre for stability, but no party should be given a brute majority in the interest of the people and the country.

Addressing the customary Dussehra Rally at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Park, he told the huge audience that it was from the very same venue that the late Balasaheb Thackeray had once given a call to have a "strong government" at the Centre.

Going forward, Thackeray urged, the Opposition bloc of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) must be given an opportunity with full strength — but without total majority to any single party to avoid a repeat of the BJP regime.

"In the past, the former prime ministers P.V. Narasimha Rao or Dr Manmohan Singh performed very well… They did not have a full majority. We need a government that can take everybody along and rule. When the government remains a bit shaky, the country remains stable," thundered Thackeray.

Targeting Prime Minister Modi, Thackeray said that the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which functioned extremely well during the coronavirus pandemic, is now being probed for corruption.

The Sena-UBT leader warned the BJP and the bureaucrats to "stop harassing us, or when we come to power, we shall also hang you upside down".

In response to Modi’s criticism of ‘dynastic politics’ in the Shiv Sena, Thackeray took a swipe saying that first a person should start a family before criticising others’ dynasties, and pointed out that the BJP too has ministers whose children are MPs or MLAs.

Speaking to the delays in the Shiv Sena-UBT case on the disqualification of 16 MLAs, including the Shiv Sena chief minister Eknath Shinde, Thackeray said that they are beset with the scenario of ‘tarikh pe tarikh (date after date)' and the matter remains stuck.

The ex-CM pointed out how, over a year after the Shiv Sena-UBT filed its case and the SC has pulled up the Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly (Rahul Narwekar), nothing has moved yet and "we don’t know what to do now". Let the Speaker give the decision as per his timetable, he concluded.

On the Maratha reservations issue, he slammed the state government for the brutal attacks on a peaceful protest by the community in Jalna last month, and likened it to General Reginald Dyer’s blitzkrieg on the Jallianwala Bagh protestors in 1919: