Sena fight in open as Raj quits posts, slams Uddhav

Angry supporters of Raj Thackeray attacked the car of Sanjay Raut, editor of Sena mouthpiece Saamna, who had been sent by Thackeray Sr to placate him.

Late this evening, Uddhav hit back at Raj, saying he wondered if his cousin’s remarks were drafted by former party leader and now Congressman Narayan Rane.

Referring to the attacks on Raut’s car, Uddhav said: ‘‘The muscle power they (Raj supporters) showed today, should have been present in the Malwan Assembly by-election.’’ Rane won the Malwan bypoll on a Congress ticket, defeating Sena candidate Parshuram Uparkar.

After sending a protest latter to Bal Thackeray last Friday, Raj had gone to Nashik but returned today to his Mumbai residence. He ignored Thackeray Sr’s summons for a meeting and faxed his resignation.

Addressing a meeting of his supporters, Raj said he was quitting the party posts but not the Sena.

He compared Bal Thackeray to a deity and Uddhav and his inner circle to priests around the deity. ‘‘My differences are not with Vitthal (the deity in Pandharpur) but with the Badawas (a Badawa is a priest at the Vitthal temple) around him,’’ he told his followers.

‘‘The Badawas began thinking that the temple belongs to them. I will never let the Sena come to any harm but if the four clerks who don’t understand politics (he meant Uddhav and his coterie) are going to take care of this party and dictate terms to me, I won’t tolerate it,’’ he said.

Claiming that the ‘‘clerks’’ were misguiding Thackeray Sr, he said they had taken a ‘‘supari’’ to destroy the party: ‘‘I suffocated in the party for six to seven years, now it has all exploded. I am not quitting for any post, definitely not for the executive president’s post. In fact, it was I who told Balasaheb to make him (Uddhav) the executive president. Now I realise that I dropped a stone on my own feet.’’

Referring to the Sena humiliation in the Malwan bypoll, Raj said that the ‘‘four clerks’’ had not taken him into confidence and ‘‘I had to go around lying to the people. How long could I tolerate this?’’

He said that the coterie around Bal Thackeray was ‘‘misguiding’’ him by spreading rumours that Pravin Darekar (Raj’s lieutenant) had met an underworld don to eliminate Uddhav. ‘‘The fact is that they have taken a supari to end the Shiv Sena.’’