Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday said his party was not finished off even though the Bharatiya Janata Party "broke it" by taking away its legislators.
The Sena (UBT) will "bury" the BJP instead, he said, speaking at a rally at Ausa in Latur district.
"The BJP broke the Shiv Sena by taking away our MLAs and MPs, (but) it does not mean that the Shiv Sena was finished. On the contrary, the Shiv Sena will bury the BJP and go ahead," Thackeray said.
BJP leaders have no courage to visit regions like Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, the former Maharashtra chief minister said.
He also claimed, without elaborating further, that his father and Sena founder late Bal Thackeray had saved Narendra Modi when late BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee was about to sideline Modi.
His party was winning elections even when Modi was not in the picture (when it was not benefitting, as a BJP ally, from Modi's popularity), he said.
"One of our traitors (leader of Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena) criticised me for moving around the state like I was the CM. But empty chairs are being seen at the chief minister's rallies, while my public meetings are drawing crowds," Thackeray said.
Countering Union home minister Amit Shah's reported statement that the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance of the Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress and NCP (SP) was a "punctured auto rickshaw," Thackeray said the BJP runs on "wheels of corruption."
He also said that in the past, the Ausa Assembly constituency was given to the BJP (when it was in alliance with the undivided Sena) at Devendra Fadnavis' request, and appealed to the people to defeat the current BJP MLA (Abhimanyu Pawar) in the coming Assembly elections.
Political power was being misused and there was "autocracy" in the country which had to be removed, Thackeray said.
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