Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar/Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday demanded that the six rebel MPs from his party be disqualified, warning the Lok Sabha Speaker that failure to act would amount to violating the Constitution.Addressing rallies in Parbhani and Dharashiv, Thackeray said his party has already written to Speaker Om Birla seeking action. “The rebel MPs cannot defect by merely achieving the two-thirds mark. Such a number is important when the party takes any stand and two-thirds of its members support it. If you (Speaker) do not follow the law, you will not be able to ask others to follow the law. History will record you as the Lok Sabha Speaker who violated the Constitution,” he said.Targeting the Shiv Sena faction led by deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, Thackeray said they have “no future” and would be discarded by their ally. “They will be thrown away after being used by the BJP,” he said.Stepping up his attack on BJP, Thackeray linked the alleged donation theft controversy at the Ayodhya Ram temple with the party’s politics around the shrine. “You didn’t want to build the temple; you wanted to open a shop to loot in the name of Ram. The poor Hindu is naive; if you say ‘Jai Shri Ram’ to him, he forgets every issue. This is a crime not only against the country, but also against the Hindus of the world,” he said.Reiterating that the split in Shiv Sena was politically engineered, Thackeray alleged it was aimed at curbing the rise of certain BJP politicians. At the Dharashiv rally, he further accused BJP of poaching MPs from multiple parties to secure numbers for Constitutional changes.“I am ready to support BJP if it carries out military intervention in Manipur or makes PoK part of India,” he said.Referring to the flight he and Devendra Fadnavis shared from Mumbai to Nagpur, Thackeray in his public rally at Parbhani said the CM looked helpless and as someone who had lost confidence. “This is not Operation Tiger, rather it is Operation Devendra Fadnavis. Whoever is in competition for the Prime Minister’s post is being pulled down like they did to Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh. Fadnavis knows his wings are being cut and he knows it is his bosses who are doing it but he does not know whom to ask for justice,” claimed Thackeray.Fadnavis, however, brushed aside Thackeray’s criticism, saying he has the blessings of 14 crore people of Maharashtra and senior leaders of the BJP so nobody can clip his wings. “I am human and have no wings, so there’s no question of anyone cutting my wings.” he added. Fadnavis further said that political issues are secondary and these do not benefit anyone. “People are more interested in development and that is what I am focusing on,” he said. Referring to the extensive media coverage of the flight, he said the question that arises in his mind is whether he is in a political system or “a market for mad people”. “It was a service flight and two leaders travelling together on the same flight is nothing unusual. If we did go on the same flight together then why must there be so much discussion all around?” he said. “Uddhav Thackeray was sitting on one side, and I was sitting on the other. Had we been sitting together, we would have spoken with each other. Normally, once I board a flight, I watch a movie or OTT series downloaded on my mobile phone,” Fadnavis said. “From the time the flight took off until it landed I was watching it (movie/web series). So where exactly did they see any helplessness on my face?” he asked. Taking a swipe at Thackeray, Fadnavis said, “I accept his good wishes. If he had given them in 2019 the picture might have been different. Since he could not do so, I accept those good wishes now.”
