As the BSS-BJP government completed six months in office, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Friday launched a no-holds-barred attack on his predecessor and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray and asserted that the government would complete the full term that it got and win the next election with thumping majority.
“From day one, there have been statements…the government will collapse in one month, then two months and so on…we have completed six months….now you are saying the government will collapse by February…but which February….let me tell you the government will complete the full term that it got and would come again with thumping majority,” Shinde told the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly on the last day of the Nagpur winter session.
“The ‘jhanda’ (flag) will be ours and the agenda would be ours,” he said, adding that the government is taking the dream of late Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray and late Anand Dighe ahead.
Shinde and BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis were sworn in on 30 June as Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister, respectively, after the Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi dispensation was toppled with 40 Shiv Sena MLAs and 10 legislators of smaller parties and independents coming out of the two-and-a-half-year-old government.
“One man can commit a mistake….but how can 50 people do wrong,” Shinde said.
Responding to Thackeray’s swipe “show the Chief Minister going around the fields in a helicopter and get one lakh rupees”, Shinde said: “…show me one Chief Minister who does not go out of office and take one lakh rupees from me.”
Leader of Opposition Ajit Pawar, however, pointed out that the speech of Shinde was “entirely political” and he skipped important issues concerning the state. “You must come out of it…don’t get into small things, this would not go down well,” Pawar said.
“You are the head of 13 crore people of the state, you represent them,” he said.
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