Mumbai, March 18 – Hours after Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday termed the INDIA bloc’s rally in Mumbai on Sunday as a ‘flop show’, the Congress hit back by saying it only proves that the Shinde camp and the BJP are fearing defeat in the upcoming elections.
Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole claimed that the INDIA bloc’s rally at the Shivaji Park on Sunday signalled a change in the country, and out of fear of defeat, the BJP and Shiv Sena leaders are criticising the event.
“There will inevitably be a change in the country and the leaders of the BJP and the Shinde faction, who are going to be unemployed, will get a one-year ‘apprenticeship’ under the guarantee of the Congress party,” Patole said.
On BJP’s charge of a tie-up between the Congress and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena to gain power, Patole reminded the BJP and the Shinde faction that it is not for the first time that they have joined hands, as the relationship between Shiv Sena supremo late Bal Thackeray and the Congress is quite old and something that has not been hidden.
“It was Balasaheb (Thackeray) who had supported the presidential candidates of the Congress-led UPA government, both Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee. These people (BJP and Shinde faction) may not be aware of it, or they may have developed a disease of forgetting,” taunted Patole.
sj/arm
