Mumbai, June 22
Much to the delight of the hardliners in the Bharatiya Janata Party and other organs of the Sangh Parivar, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray has called for a return to hardline Hindutva for the Maharashtra Assembly polls. In an interview to a television channel coinciding with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national executive meeting in Mumbai, Mr Thackeray reiterated that Hindutva would be a major issue in the state assembly polls to be held later this year.
The Shiv Sena supremo even defended Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, now in the centre of a storm after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee called for his removal.
“It is an issue raised by the opposition. Why are you removing him under pressure? You think of your party’s interest,” Mr Thackeray advised the BJP. Echoing the arguments of the BJP’s hardliners, Mr Thackeray said the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat were a reaction to what happened in Godhra. “If the reaction to the demolition of Babri Masjid can be felt in Mumbai, why can’t the reaction to Godhra occur in other parts of Gujarat?” Mr Thackeray asked.
The Shiv Sena chief felt that the BJP’s attempts to woo the minorities did not help the party. He added that the two Hindu parties would have to return to their hardline Hindutva agenda.
Mr Thackeray even announced that he would not attend the dinner organized for leaders of the Shiv Sena by the BJP at a Mumbai hotel later on Tuesday. BJP leaders were, however, still hoping that Mr Thackeray would change his mind. Leaders of the Shiv Sena and the BJP have already begun to make noises about the ‘appeasement of minorities’ in the run-up to the national executive meet. Former deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra and senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde said the two parties would focus on the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party’s attempts to support the criminal elements belonging to the minority community.
“The Hindutva issue should be raised, and we agree with Mr Thackeray,” Maharashtra BJP president Gopinath Munde has been quoted as saying. In his inaugural speech, BJP president Venkiah Naidu even hit out at what he called, competitive pseudo-secularism. Later in the day party spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi even went on to reassure party hardliners saying the BJP had never given up its ideals.
At the state level, the Shiv Sena and the BJP have already announced that they would highlight the killing of Ishrat Jahan Shamim Raza by the Gujarat police. While the Congress and the NCP insist she was innocent, the BJP insists that she was a member of a Lashkar-e-Toiba team sent to kill Mr Modi.
Apart from raising the matter in the state legislature, the two parties are planning to take the matter to the streets. Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece, Saamna, has begun a daily series on the issue.
The pieces invariable hits out that the secular parties for posing a threat to national security by supporting Ishrat and her relatives.
