Sena, Hindutva can’t be separated: Uddhav Thackeray

MUMBAI: Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday made an emotional appeal to the rebel faction, saying he was willing to step down from both the posts of CM and Sena chief but countered its claims on the party’s Hindutva line.

“Shiv Sena and Hindutva cannot be separated from each other. I am the first chief minister to speak about Hindutva in the assembly,” he said in a Facebook live address shortly after the rebel faction sent a letter signed by 34 MLAs to governor B S Koshyari and declared that Shinde would retain the post of Shiv Sena legislature party chief. On the charge that Shiv Sena was no longer the party that Balasaheb Thackeray had founded, he said the party continued to do well after his father’s death in 2012.

Thackeray said the CM’s post came to him unexpectedly and he was not attached to any position. “I had no experience in administration, but things took a turn and we formed a government with Congress and NCP. When NCP chief Sharad Pawar insisted I should take the CM’s post, I did so because I do not step away from a challenge,” he asserted.

Responding to criticism that he was unavailable, Thackeray said he could not be present for a few months after his surgery, but his work continued from the hospital and he was available to partymen after that.