At Pune rally, Aaditya Thackeray slams rebel leaders: ‘They are traitors’

Incidentally, Aaditya’s public rally in Pune coincided with the first visit of Shinde to the city after he became the CM.

Aaditya said while there have been efforts to “finish off” the Thackeray family in politics, the rebel faction should not forget that citizens still stand by the Thackeray family. “The rebels got elected on Sena tickets and I had campaigned for them in their constituencies. They could not maintain the connect with their voters and blame us for their failures,” he said.

“We trusted them, that was our biggest mistake. We accept the mistake. They are traitors. If they were not traitors, then they would not have gone in hiding,” said Aaditya. He said if the rebel Sena leaders were true Shiv Sainiks, they would have helped those suffering in the Assam floods instead of “having fun in a hotel in Guwahati”. He said when Thackeray had submitted his resignation to the Governor, the rebels “celebrated by distributing sweets and dancing.” “They don’t deserve to be leaders of the Shiv Sena. They have only been trying to throw Thackeray family out of politics,” said Aaditya.

Newsletter | Click to get the day’s best explainers in your inbox

“They have been lying… they left saying they were doing this for Hindutva, then cited their reason as problems in constituencies while criticising the Sena chief and me for ignoring them. Then have been saying they have affection towards Uddhavji and me, but later they publicly criticised us. Now, they are getting exposed… their lies are getting exposed,” said Aaditya.