Teach Uddhav Thackeray a lesson, Amit Shah tells Maharashtra BJP unit

Shah also gave them an ambitious target of winning more than 50% seats in the BMC elections

Accusing Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray of betrayal, Union home minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah on Monday told his party workers to teach the former Maharashtra chief minister a lesson in the forthcoming polls to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

“Time has come to show him his place and teach him a lesson,” Shah reportedly said in a meeting of top BJP functionaries, which included Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Maharashtra BJP President Chandrashekhar Bawankule and his Mumbai counterpart Ashish Shelar, and other senior party leaders.

Shah also gave them an ambitious target of winning more than 50 per cent seats in the BMC elections.

The Thackeray faction had reminded Shah of Shiv Sena’s help, and the support of the late Balasaheb Thackeray to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he was Gujarat chief minister during the post-Godhra riots in 2002.

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“You (Shiv Sena) asked for votes in the name of Narendra Modi and on the work of (then chief minister) Devendra Fadnavis. You have betrayed the people,” Shah reportedly said. “If you betray in politics, you cannot pursue honest politics.”

Reacting to Shah’s charge, Thackeray's close aide and Shiv Sena chief spokesperson Arvind Sawant said: “It is typical of BJP’s language…they once told Shiv Sena ‘patak denge’ (will flip them)…but later came to us (for alliance) in 2019 (before Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha) polls.”

“It was Balasaheb who impressed upon then-CM Narendra Modi and then-Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani not to remove Modi,” Sawant said, referring to the post-Godhra riots.

The BMC, which is one of the biggest and richest civic bodies of India, has supposedly been under the control of Thackeray family for over quarter of a century, and is considered the lifeline of Shiv Sena.

Currently, the regional saffron party is divided into two factions—one led by Thackeray and the other by rebel leader and Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who has the support of the BJP.