Hyderabad: In a scathing and fierce attack on the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), former Maharashtra Minister and MLA Aditya Thackeray Tuesday accused the ruling party of inciting communal riots and crating instability in opposition ruled states.
"Our Hindutva is clearly defined. We don't burn people over what they eat. If that is the BJP's Hindutva, it is not acceptable to me, my father, my grandfather, and our people and not to Maharashtra," Thackeray said in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
"I am a Hindu and was a Hindu when the BJP had broken alliance with the Shiv Sena in 2014. The BJP backstabbed us in 2014. We were Hindus then. We are Hindus now. The BJP is inciting riots in the State today."
"What about the Kashmiri pandits? Why isn't the world's largest pro-Hindutva party speaking about the Kashmiri Pandits? Who are asking for transfers from Kashmir to safer places when Kashmiri Pandits are even being killed today," he said further.
Aditya said this while interacting with the students of GITAM (Deemed to be University) at its Hyderabad campus, as part of a Changemakers session moderated by Smita Sharma, visiting faculty, Kautilya School of Public Policy.
Praising the performance of the earstwhile MVA government, Aditya said Maharashtra is no more the investment hub as it used to be.
"It is sad to see that Maharashtra -- which was competing amongst the top five states in the Covid times and was one of the top players in terms of investment, tourism, sustainability, urban growth -- is now lagging. During our time as MVA government, we saw zero incidence of communal violence, everyone worked together, the state had Rs 6.5 lakh crore as investment coming in, we had multiple MoUs for factories coming up there.
"Today, look at where Maharashtra is. We have an unconstitutional government, which is keeping aside the constitution and running a government which is highly autocratic, highly dictatorial, and opaque. We're not one of the most attractive states for investment, because of political instability," said the Shiv Sena-UBT leader and MLA from Mumbai's Worli.
Aditya also said the situation today is worse than emergency, and it is so bad that the people are scared of calling so.
"At least some people in the past had the guts to call an Emergency an Emergency - Today we're in an undeclared Emergency. To completely knock out any opposition and alternate voices is troublesome for a country," he said.
Reaffirming his faith in people and judiciary, Thackeray iterated that it's very crucial to see which debates we choose for ourselves.
"What we engage in our country today is religion vs religion, region vs region -- everything apart from the core issues. Are we debating unemployment, inflation, and problems we face as citizens?"
“We're not debating the right things, we're fighting over something that happened 50-60 years ago, over the personalities that lived 100 years ago or whether some king/emperor did the right thing. But we are not fighting for the future. What will our future generations think?” he asked.
Aditya Thackeray’s accused the BJP of instaging communal violence at the backdrop of global outrage against anti-Muslim riots on the occasion of Ram Navami last week.
The main opposition party Congress in fact had said the BJP is inciting violence as it is feeling weakened.
Similar accusation against the BJP was also levelled by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
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