Mumbai: India will turn into a ‘Bigg Boss House’ if the Narendra Modi government returns to power after the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray said, adding that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will ‘dictate’ what people should eat or wear if it gets a fresh mandate. In an interview to ThePrint, the scion of the Thackeray family also accused Modi of trying to communalise the election campaign to compensate for lack of concrete achievements that improved the lives of the common man.
“The BJP wants to rewrite the Constitution. They want to make you a part of the BJP ecosystem and not just that, they want to enter your house and tell you what to eat, what to wear, and that’s very evident. If the BJP wins tomorrow, they will enter every common citizen’s house and begin surveillance of you. You will live in a Bigg Boss house,” he said.
The son and heir apparent of former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, Aaditya also slammed the BJP for allying with his estranged uncle Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), and accused the BJP’s state leadership of being ‘anti-democratic’ and ‘taking industries away from Maharashtra to Gujarat. He also exuded confidence in the prospects of the INDIA bloc and said it would win ‘maximum seats’.
On the BJP’s tie-up with the MNS, Aaditya termed it a ‘lose-lose’ situation for both.
“For people in UP and Bihar, who will vote for the BJP, they should remember that it has allied with a party that beat up people from UP and Bihar in Mumbai. For the Jain community, a party that protested by hanging meat outside their holy place, they will also think about whom the BJP has allied with,” he said.
“As for the MNS cadres and their leaders, they should figure out how they will speak and support the BJP after its anti-Maharashtra motives, which they exhibited by taking industries away from Maharashtra to Gujarat,” added the former state minister.
Aaditya also criticised Modi for making ‘communal remarks’ on the campaign trail.
“Even after 10 years of a full majority government, if you (Modi) speak about mutton, maas (meat) and macchi (fish), if you divide people along communal lines and not speak about what you have been able to achieve, who has the government really worked for? It probably worked for just one industrialist and stakeholders of the BJP. This government hasn’t really worked for the people of India,” he said.
Recalling events from 2019, Aaditya said that the BJP, by not honouring its promise to support a chief minister from the Sena for half of the five-year tenure, betrayed his grandfather Bal Thackeray who supported the party through its highs and lows. The undivided Shiv Sena then led by Uddhav had walked out of the BJP-led NDA and entered into an alliance with the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress to keep the BJP out of power in the state in the aftermath of the assembly elections.
“What really hurt us is that Mr (Devendra) Fadnavis called the holiest place for us, my grandfather’s room — Hindu Hruday Samrat Balasaheb’s room — some kholi (small room). How can you call that just another room when that man supported you so much? How can you (BJP) break a promise that was given in that room?”
Addressing a public meeting in Dharavi on 20 April, Uddhav had said that Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis assured the Thackerays in 2019 that he would “groom” Aaditya and subsequently move to Delhi after appointing him chief minister.
Aaditya, however, denied harbouring any such ambitions.
“There’s no such dream of being a chief minister. I have been serving the state. My dream is to make Maharashtra No. 1 in industries and agriculture.”
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‘BJP govt only placing ads’
Though the Shiv Sena has for the longest time remained a regional party, the faction led by Uddhav is now eyeing a national role as part of the INDIA bloc of parties opposed to the BJP.
Aaditya said that in 2019 voters had some hope that if given another term Modi would fulfil his promises, but the BJP at the Centre has done little other than blowing its own trumpet.
“Five years ago, as a country we were willing to give another five years to the Honourable PM and BJP. But since then, we have seen jumla after jumla. People who had forgiven him for demonetisation, GST, are now badly hit by all of it. Young people are looking for jobs, but they aren’t available in urban or rural areas. Agrarian distress is at its peak. Government isn’t doing anything apart from placing ads and putting up hoardings,” he said.
Without putting a number to the seats the INDIA bloc expects to win, Aaditya said he was sure that the alliance would win ‘maximum seats’.
Asked about the INDIA bloc’s prime ministerial face, he responded by saying that the BJP and its allies are contesting the elections in the name of Modi but the INDIA bloc has many who can replace him.
“BJP doesn’t have another face or choice or alternative for the position of PM, but are you trying to say in a country of a billion people, everyone else is worthless? Is BJP saying this? We have multiple choices with us,” he said, without taking any names.
Reiterating the line taken by constituents of the INDIA bloc, he said that the allies came together to ‘save’ democracy and the Constitution.
He also emphasised the role of regional parties in the larger scheme of things. India being a diverse country, every state, every region has diversity and multiple voices that need to be heard, he said, adding that is why coalition governments ‘work better’ in our country.
“We have come to believe that a weaker or coalition government makes a stronger country. Because of the amount of diversity we have in our country, every voice needs to be heard. Right now, we are not hearing these voices, we are hearing the voice of one man and Mann Ki Baat of one man and probably an industrialist who has the backing of this government,” he said, referring to allegations of crony capitalism levelled against Modi by the Opposition.
‘Don’t snatch away industries from Maharashtra’
Attacking the BJP’s state leadership, Aaditya said that the ruling Mahayuti alliance is “anti-democratic” and “has not achieved anything in the last two-and-a-half years except breaking two parties, the Pawar family, and snatching away parties and symbols”.
The ruling alliance has betrayed Maharashtra and its cause by ‘snatching away’ jobs and industries from the state and giving it to Gujarat, he said. The Shiv Sena (UBT) has alleged in the past that as many as 17 big-ticket projects, including a manufacturing facility for semiconductors and display fabs and another for military transport aircraft, were shifted out of Maharashtra to the neighbouring state.
“I am not against Gujarat, they should get what they deserve and is their due, but don’t snatch it away from us for your favourite state. Are we not a part of this country? Why are we treated as second-class citizens?” asked Aaditya Thackeray.
He also asked why Magnetic Maharashtra — a summit to rope in investments for the state — had not been organised since 2020, while Gujarat was able to do the same through the Vibrant Gujarat summit.
Aaditya, who has been vocal about issues related to Mumbai and its civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), also said that when the undivided Shiv Sena took over 25 years ago, the civic body was in debt but over the last five terms, its fixed deposits started showing a surplus upwards of Rs 90,000 crore.
“Today, under this government, we have committed expenditure and liabilities of over Rs 2.5 lakh crore. When we form the government, we will have a free and fair enquiry into every bit of it and mark my words, we will not spare a single official or minister who is responsible for this loot and corruption, even former Municipal Commissioner (Iqbal Singh) Chahal or anybody,” Aaditya told ThePrint.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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