The November 20 Maharashtra assembly polls will decide if the state belongs to revered personalities like Mahatma Phule, Babasaheb Ambedkar and Chhatrapati Shahu or the troika of Modi-Shah-Adani, said Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray here on Thursday.
He also slammed Union Minister Amit Shah for claiming in a recent rally that the Shiv Sena (UBT) was aligned with those who had opposed scrapping of Article 37, which gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
"This poll will decide whether the state belongs to Phule, Ambedkar and Shahu or to people like (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi, Shah and (billionaire industrialist Gautam) Adani. This poll is between lovers of Maharashtra and looters of Maharashtra," he said.
Attacking Modi, who held a rally here earlier in the day, Thackeray claimed the PM made hollow promises.
He also slammed the PM for referring to the Shiv Sena founder as just Balasaheb Thackeray without the honorific 'Hinduhrudaysamrat".
"He is not a classmate of Modi. I passed the decision to rename this city after Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar when traitors (a reference to rebel MLAs under Chief Minister Eknath Shinde) were in Surat to eat dhokla," Thackeray said.
Why has the Election Commission not changed the name of the Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies (after the name of the district) so far and why is the airport at Chikalthana still bearing the old name, he asked.
Slamming Shah, he said, "The Union Home minister says we are standing with those who opposed scrapping of Article 370. We applauded you for the move. But tell me if any Kashmiri Pandit has been able to go back to his native Valley after the provision was scrapped," the Shiv Sena (UBT) chief questioned.
Asserting that the BJP's love for Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar was fake, he said a medical devices park set to come up here, which would have employed one lakh persons, was shifted to Gujarat.
Thackeray said poll officials were checking his bags amid the model code of conduct, adding in a sarcastic vein that he was told the bags of the PM only contain hollow promises.
Playing on the BJP's slogan of 'batenge toh katenge', Thackeray said the party is openly indulging in "lootenge aur doston mein batenge" in Maharashtra.
The MVA government will be in power in a few days, he said and urged farmers not to sell their soybean crop till then.
"We will give you more MSP than earlier. I take responsibility for this. We will also waive off farm loans," Thackeray said at the rally.
Leader of opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council Ambadas Danve and former MP Chandrakant Khaire also slammed the ruling dispensation for "hollow promises" of eradicating water scarcity in Marathwada.
The region has seen 7274 farmer suicides so far, Danve said.
Maharashtra assembly polls will be held on November 20, while results will be declared on November 23.
Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.
