Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray Taking a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray on Wednesday said that BJP should build its own party rather than breaking other parties and getting MLAs and MPs from the opposition parties to join them.
“BJP is flexing its muscle and making people join the party… It should now learn to build its own party instead of breaking other parties. Amit (Thackeray’s son) was going somewhere, and a toll naka was broken. BJP has said ‘first learn to build roads and then toll booths’. I think BJP should learn to build its party without poaching MLAs from other parties,” said Raj referring to a ransacking incident at a toll naka in Nashik last month, allegedly by some MNS workers, when party leader Amit Thackeray was allegedly stopped and toll booth staffers misbehaved with him.
Addressing party workers at MNS’s Nirdhar rally in Panvel — wherein Raj called for an agitation against the incomplete work at Mumbai-Goa Highway for nearly two decades, he said that “it has been 16-17 years since the Mumbai-Goa Highway was being constructed, but was yet to be completed.”
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Sanjay Shirsat refuted Raj’s claims and said, “What Raj Thackeray is saying is not true. If someone joins another party or leaves the parent party on his own, it cannot be called breaking the party. Why did Sharad Pawar leave the party (Congress)? Why did Raj Thackeray leave the party (Shiv Sena)? Because, they were not getting any opportunity there. This is not a politics of violence.”
In major political upheavals in the state since June 2022, the Shiv Sena and the NCP have split, with one faction from each party joining hands with the BJP to become a ruling partner.