In a veiled attack on Shiv Sena (UBT), the city BJP chief Ashish Shelar on Wednesday said that the Mumbai BJP will give a befitting reply to skeptics of genuineness of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's 'Wagh Nakhe' through a series of programmes including lectures and 'powada'.
"In response to those who are raising doubts about the ‘waghnakh’ (tiger claw) used by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj to kill Afzal Khan, Mumbai BJP has organized a special event titled ‘Shankhekhorancha kothala baher kaadhnarach – waghnakhanchya nimittane’ (a befitting response to those who are raising doubts about the tiger claws)," Shelar told reporters.
The programme will be organised on Thursday, October 12 from 5.30 pm onwards at Swatantryaveer Savarkar Auditorium at Dadar West. Renowned actor Rahul Solapurkar shall speak on the occasion, while Shahir Nandesh Umap will present a ‘powada’.
Controversy surrounding Chhatrapati Shivaji's 'Wagh Nakhe'
Shelar further said that Maharashtra government signed an MoU with London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in London to get the ‘Wagh Nakhe’ used by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. It will come to Maharashtra in November this year for a period of three years.
It will be available for people’s viewing in Mumbai, Nagpur, Solapur, Satara and other places of Maharashtra. Unfortunately, some mischievous characters have raised doubts about the genuineness of this weapon. Those who are only interested in indulging in mischievous activities, like Aaditya Thackeray and his likes, this discourse has been organized to apprise them about the issue. Here, ‘kothala’ literally meaning ‘gut’ is used for ideologies. It is an open invitation to all.
'We are trying to present truth'
Replying to queries about Aaditya Thackeray, Shelar said, “It is easy to wake up those who are asleep but difficult to wake up those who are pretending to be asleep. If Aaditya wants some wisdom and wishes to get more information, we will definitely respectfully invite him. We are trying to present the truth."
"Doubts are usually not raised without any reason. This is all intentional, to appease a certain vote bank keeping in mind the forthcoming Lok Sabha and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections. This is nothing but politics of appeasement and hence these unnecessary doubts. It is a planned move to please a certain section of the society. People in Mumbai and Maharashtra are closely watching all of this. Even today, there are boards written in Urdu, Persian and Arabic languages in areas of Dongri to Mohammad Ali Road. Nobody bothers to go to disgrace and destroy these boards. But, they reach Ghatkopar to vandalise boards written in Gujarati script. If you dare, go to Dongri! Boards in different scripts are still there. Try and vandalise those boards. They will never dare to go there because they want the votes of this vote bank. Only because Hindus are coming together, this congregation of people are getting worried. And hence they are trying all possible means to break this unity," Shelar said, adding that the UBT group is deliberately working against the unity of Hindus.
