Aaditya Thackeray interview: ‘Forget friends, today’s BJP will eat its own… Where is the original BJP in BJP?… Fadnavis ji has finished them off’

How do you see your campaign progressing?

It has been good. One can see the public support for the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which is also the INDIA bloc. Even as the BJP is trying to polarise on multiple issues, people are asking specific questions about what they have done in the past 10 years. About unemployment, about what Maharashtra has got. It is zero… We have lost our pride and strength to Gujarat.

What are the important issues in this election?

In the agriculture sector, no farmer is happy. They haven’t received compensation for damages due to climate crises… unemployment and inflation are on the rise. Our industries and mega infrastructure projects are being pushed to Gujarat…

So this election is about getting Maharashtra’s voice to Delhi. The BJP is trying to stop our voice from being heard… Of other states, the South has decided to vote against the BJP. And what have Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh received from the BJP in 10 years? Every state has seen only polarisation, over religion, caste…

You are facing this election with new partners Congress and NCP, having left the BJP. What challenge does this pose?

The BJP with whom we had a friendly relationship was the BJP of (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee ji… Today it feels like the BJP does not need friends at all. Tomorrow they may feel that no non-BJP party should even exist… The BJP wants to change the Constitution, snatch the rights and reservation of everyone.

So what are you telling the people?

(We tell them) We were with the BJP till 2019 as we thought it would reduce unemployment and inflation… try to increase the value of the rupee vis-a-vis the US dollar… None of the promises the BJP made has been fulfilled, and now there is polarisation. Whenever the BJP is on the verge of losing, it starts polarisation.

Do you think the Sena (UBT) bears the burden of the MVA, or are your partners pulling their weight?

Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi and others are also speaking openly against the BJP. The INDIA bloc is talking about the core issues.

You say the BJP is only polarising and not talking about what it has done in 10 years. But what is your vision for the state?

Our first focus will be the pride of Maharashtra. We have to regain its status as the financial hub of the country… The UPA government never stopped any industry or project from coming to Maharashtra… or focused on only one state… Today, all industries are being sent to only one state… In our (the MVA’s) two-and-a-half-year government, we got nearly Rs 6 lakh crore investment to the state…

If you see the Bullet Train project, why wouldn’t they propose it from Delhi to Mumbai? Why only Mumbai to Ahmedabad?… Why did you shift the GIFT City to Gujarat?… The Congress had proposed it for Mumbai under the UPA government…

Who do you hold responsible for the split in the Shiv Sena?

The BJP. Right from 2014, it has brought dirty politics to every dining table across India, every office and sector. The kind of poaching, allegations, character assassination being practised… And the same people whom the BJP’s leaders accuse of corruption are given top posts after they join the BJP.

The BJP also tried to get the Sena’s votes after breaking it, but has not been able to do that.

But the Shinde Sena blames you for the alliance with the BJP coming apart.

It was in October 2014 that they broke the alliance with us. So what was wrong then? Were we not Hindu? In 2019, they approached us for an alliance, and we had one. In 2019, during the Assembly elections again, we had a pre-poll alliance. But then they broke all their promises… There is no trust.

Senior BJP leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the Sena broke because of Uddhav ji’s ‘putra prem (love for son)’.

If they are saying that the Sena broke because of putra prem and the NCP as well, I want to ask: Did we lose the Cricket World Cup because of putra prem? (Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah is the BCCI Secretary.)

Your rivals say you have deviated from Hindutva ideology.

There is a huge difference between the BJP’s Hindutva and our Hindutva. Our Hindutva says we need Ram in the heart and kaam (work) in the hand. Ram is always there in the heart, but where is the work? Unemployment is increasing. So this is our Hindutva… and there is the Hindutva which polarises religions. Our Hindutva is not electoral Hindutva… The Ram Mandir which has been constructed today is because of the Supreme Court; the BJP has nothing to do with it. When the BJP loses polls, it remembers Hindutva…

Despite being in power for 10 years, they are still complaining about what Nehru did, Indira did. You want to talk about mutton, machchi (fish). What has the government to do with what I eat and wear?

How has it been for you and your family in the two-and-a-half years since the Sena split?

This dirty politics of breaking families and parties has been started by (BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister) Devendra Fadnavis ji and is not liked by anyone in the state… He nurses revenge (for his government’s fall)… Go anywhere in the state and ask any common man about Fadnavis…

Today’s BJP is different, forget about friends, they will eat their own people. If you see this government, who is the CM? An outsider (Eknath Shinde) accused of corruption… Of the two Deputy CMs, Ajit Pawar is also an outsider… Ten people in the Cabinet used to be in our party, then there are nine leaders of the NCP… Of the remaining 10 BJP people in the Cabinet, six too have come from outside… So where is the original BJP in the BJP? Where are its old leaders such as Prakash Mehta ji, Gopal Shetty ji? Fadnavis ji has finished them off.

Are you still pained over the Sena split?

The pain is about how people jumped ship during the toughest time for our family, how they backstabbed my father. The pain is about what my father must be thinking, after the efforts he made for the expansion of the party.

The Opposition is raising the issue of electoral bonds, but your party too received funds via bonds.

Absolutely, everyone has got electoral bonds, but the quantum that the BJP got… its ‘Chanda do, dhanda lo (give funds, get business) scheme’… that is what makes the BJP different from all parties… Some loss-making companies gave their entire assets to the party… It is the biggest example of corruption in the history of the world.

And again the biggest sex scandal of the world coming out from Karnataka (involving BJP partner JD-S’s leader Prajwal Revanna). What is the BJP doing about it? Where is the WCD Minister? What is the women’s commission doing?… Why is the Election Commission not taking any action against him? Why are they not debarring him? Is it so blind in its love for the BJP?

Where do you see the Sena (UBT)’s position in the INDIA bloc after the polls?

Very strong. The INDIA bloc and the MVA alliance have come together because we know that the BJP wants to finish democracy and change the Constitution. It wants to write its own Constitution as it doesn’t like the one given to us by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar…

How many seats do you see the MVA winning?

The maximum.

Can the BJP and Shiv Sena join hands again?

If you have seen the campaigning and behaviour of the BJP… the poison they have in their mind against Dr Ambedkar and the Constitution and for democracy… till the time such poison is in their heart, no alliance can be formed.

Tomorrow, there will be Pegasus in everyone’s phone, cameras at one’s house… You will see surveillance 24/7 and face restrictions on eating, clothes… The way China has entered Ladakh… there the BJP has no guts to speak. In fact, it wants to emulate China in having one party, one rule.

Are your doors open for the people who left with Shinde?

Not at all. The way these cowards behaved, our doors are closed to them.

How will your alliance with the NCP and Congress affect your traditional vote bank?

Even when we were in an alliance with the Congress, we went to Ayodhya three-four times. We haven’t changed our Hindutva, neither has the Congress changed its agenda. For democracy to survive, no party needs to change its agenda. What we need to think first is how our democracy will survive, how our Constitution will be protected.