Wounded tiger will strike back, warns Thackeray

8216;8216;The tiger is wounded but not dead. A wounded tiger always springs back. I may be in a cage but don8217;t dare to tease me.8217;8217; Thackeray began and ended his annual Dassera address 8212; standing straight through the hour and referring to notes 8212; with the assertion pointedly to the media that the Sena survives despite its debacle at the Assembly polls.

8216;8216;If some of my rallies had not been cancelled due to ill-health, we would have won 10 more seats.8217;8217;

It was only after expressing that brief regret to cadres and an attentive 8216;8216;Hindu8217;8217; audience at the Maharashtrian heartland of Dadar that Thackeray moved on to Maharashtra-for-Marathis 8212; exactly what partymen waited to hear, to repeat in future campaigns to reassert the Sena8217;s grip over the state.

Thackeray said he was not against all migrants.

8216;8216;Those who migrated here before 1995 are Maharashtrians, except for Bangladeshi Muslims. Those who have lived here for 40-45 years should not call themselves migrants,8217;8217; he said.

The aggression was softened, but only barely.

He warned that the Sena would expect pre-1995 migrants to also blend into the 8216;8216;culture of Mumbai8217;8217; and not trouble sons-of-the-soil with hate campaigns.

8216;8216;Hindus don8217;t fight between themselves,8217;8217; he cautioned. 8216;8216;The Sena will not tolerate it.8217;8217;

The Sena8217;s aggressive stand against the settlement of migrants into Mumbai and the state is now under heavy analysis as a prime cause of alienating voters 8212; markedly in Mumbai 8212; and reducing its tally in this Assembly election.

To effectively clarify that he8217;s not against all non-Maharashtrians, he brought along notes 8212; names of non-Maharashtrian Rajya Sabha members nominated by the Sena 8212; like Chandrika Kenia, Ram Jethmalani, Sanjay Nirupam and Pritish Nandy.

8216;8216;Is there a Marathi mantri in Uttar Pradesh or Laloo8217;s Bihar?8217;8217; he asked, with a repeated reminder, that for the Shiv Sena, 8216;8216;Maharashtra is a Marathi state.8217;8217;

On the Sena8217;s violent attack on Bihar migrants at suburban Kalyan station during a railway recruitment drive, Thackeray said Sena activists became aggressive that day because advertisements were allegedly printed in UP and Bihar but not in Marathi newspapers.

8216;8216;There were so many migrants at Kalyan, daily commuters could not get into trains. That8217;s when Sainiks decided to intervene.8217;8217;

Unlike his rival Congress-NCP alliance still squabbling over the chief minister8217;s post, he maintained early in the speech that there is no infighting within the Sena.

8216;8216;So what if somebody wants to be CM?8217;8217; he said, with son Uddhav and nephew Raj sharing the stage. 8216;8216;I will decide, the public will decide.8217;8217;

His speech took a dig at the Gandhi family again. 8216;8216;How can a man who loves a foreign girl love his nation?8217;8217; Bal Thackeray8217;s speech dragged Rahul Gandhi into his regular digs at Sonia Gandhi8217;s foreign origin. 8216;8216;Rahul will marry a foreign girl8230;like another Sonia8230;We can find him a wife if he finds it so difficult.8217;8217;