'Not right to have hatred towards other religions,' Nawab Malik takes jibe at BJP

Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik came out in support of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray after the latter remarked that Shiv Sena had wasted 25 years in alliance with the BJP.

"It is a fact that the parties that made an alliance with BJP, were gradually destroyed by them. It's good to take pride in one's religion, but it is not right to have hatred towards other religions," Malik said.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Monday said that his party took BJP from bottom to top in Maharashtra.

"We took BJP from bottom to top in Maharashtra. After Babri, there was a Shiv Sena wave in Northern India, if we had fought polls at that time, there would have been Shiv Sena's PM in country but we left it for them", Raut said.

Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray said that Shiv Sena had aligned with BJP as it wanted power for Hindutva. Sena never used Hindutva for the sake of power," he said.

Addressing Shiv Sainiks virtually on the 96th birth anniversary of the party founder and his father Bal Thackeray, Uddhav said that he still believes that 25 years the Sena had spent with BJP as an ally were "rotted".

The Sena has left BJP and not Hindutva. I believe that BJP's opportunistic Hindutva is only for power, he added.

Thackeray alleged that BJP forged an "opportunistic alliance" with PDP in Kashmir. "BJP even tied up with Nitish Kumar (in Bihar) who had spoken about a 'Sangh-mukt' (RSS free) Bharat," he said.

The Sena fell out with BJP after the 2019 Maharashtra polls and tied up with NCP and Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.

(With agency inputs)