NAGPUR, Feb 12: Senior Congress leader and leader of the opposition in the State Legislative Council Chhagan Bhujbal on Tuesday came down heavily on the Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray for his utterances against Sonia Gandhi.Speaking to newspersons here, Bhujbal said that the way the Sena chief was opposing Sonia was in bad taste and against the culture of ``Shiv Shahi''.
He said that Thackeray swears by the name of Shivaji, but has forgotten how the Marathas had treated women, even from the enemy camp, honourably.He ridiculed Thackeray's claim that he was on the hit-list of terrorists. The Sena leader always preferred not to move outside the state arguing that he was on the hit-list. Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Sharad Pawar and Sonia Gandhi were supposed to be on hit lists of some ultra-organisations, but they were touring the country, risking their lives. ``Thackeray is the most cowardly man in the country and thus has never gone outside the state,'' he said and pointed out that despite athreat from militant ULFA activists, Sonia Gandhi visited Assam recently and addressed a massive rally there.
The senior Congress leader, who is on an election tour in the state, claimed that the party was getting tremendous response, particularly after the active participation of Sonia Gandhi in the election campaigning. The Sonia factor has perturbed the Sena-BJP alliance and hence Thackeray was using foul language against her out of frustration, he said.
According to him, the Congress would get at least 30 Lok Sabha seats in the coming Lok Sabha mid-term elections. The party would also improve its position in the Vidarbha region this time, he further claimed.
He scoffed at the senior BJP leader and deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, Gopinath Munde's offer of giving deputy CM's post to the RPI in exchange of giving support in the Lok Sabha elections.The offer indicated that there was a panick in the saffron alliance camp over the increasing public support to the Congress-RPI-Samajwadi Partycombination in tMaharashtra. u Bhujbal said that Munde's tempting offer was apparently aimed at driving a wedge between the Congress and the RPI. But the followers of Babasaheb Ambedkar would not be taken in by it. They have realised that the Sena-BJP was communal, anti-Dalit and anti-minority.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
