‘Tigress of Bengal is fighting alone’: Uddhav backs Mamata’s return as Bengal CM

Mumbai: Amid the BJP’s aggressive campaign to oust West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in the upcoming assembly polls, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday lauded Banerjee’s fighting spirit while accusing the BJP of trying to split the country by linking the women reservation bill with the delimitation bill.

“The tigress of Bengal is fighting alone against the BJP and she should win,” Uddhav Thackeray said while speaking at a meeting of Bhartiya Kamgar Sena in Dadar.

Thackeray slammed Fadnavis without naming him for going to campaign in West Bengal while law and order in Maharashtra deteriorated.

“Here, drugs are available openly and self-styled godmen are running rackets. And they are going to West Bengal for campaigning,” Thackeray said.

He criticised the BJP for using a large deployment of central forces in the Bengal polls while not sending forces to Manipur when the Kuki-Meitei ethnic conflict peaked in the state.

“Around 200,000 paramilitary personnel have been deployed in West Bengal. But in Manipur, they did not deploy even 50,000 personnel to save women and people from riots,” the Sena (UBT) chief said.

Opposing the policy of linking Lok Sabha seats with population, Thackeray wondered if it was a crime to implement family planning. He further criticised the BJP over the women’s quota bill and alleged they had no compassion for women.

“If BJP has so much compassion for women’s reservation, then why it did not invite women MPs to the inauguration of the Parliament House and the Ram temple,” Thackeray said.

Referring to the BJP’s attempts in the recent past to take over employees’ unions in establishments which were under the control of the Bhartiya Kamgar Sena, Thackeray said that some new unions had been coming up, but they only wanted to cut deals with the owners. “On other hand, BKS has been working for the benefit of employees for the last 58 years,” he said.