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Shiv Sena president and Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, at his first public event outside Mumbai in more than six months, launched a broadside at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at a mega party rally in Aurangabad on Wednesday. He chastised it for failing to protect Kashmiri Pandits while stating that the party, once the Shiv Sena’s long-time ally, could capture power at the Centre only because of the help rendered by the late Sena founder Bal Thackeray. The Sena chief, however, sought to nuance his party's ideology by expounding on his father's politics, stressing that the late Bal Thackeray had never exhorted the Sena and its activists to hate muslims nor did the party preach hatred towards other religions. He pointedly narrated the tale of the abduction and killing of Indian Army rifleman Aurangzeb by militants in south Kashmir's Shopian district in 2018, stating that the Sena respected all those who gave their lives for the motherland regardless of religion or caste. At the same time, the Maharashtra CM stressed the Sena’s contribution in the Babri mosque demolition. The BJP and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), led by the CM’s estranged cousin Raj, have of-ten charged the Sena with toning down its Hindutva rhetoric in deference to 'coalition dharma' ever since it forged an ideologically opposed alliance with the Sharad Pawar led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in late 2019. Mr. Thackeray sought to put the BJP on the defensive over the targeted killing of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley, the furor in the Arab world over comments by BJP functionaries, and rising prices “Whom are you teaching Hindutva? If you [the BJP are real men, then go and protect Kashmiri Pandits and Hindus in the Valley, 27 of whom have lost their lives in the last two months. But no spokesperson of the BJP is willing to speak on this,” said the Sena chief. “Hindutva is not about wearing saffron
caps, one should have Hindutva in one’s mind.”