Shiv Sena attacks Centre on Hindutva, PM's foreign visits

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday targeted the Centre on a slew of issues, including foreign visits, cow vigilantism, Hindutva and much more.

Addressing the party's national executive here, Thackeray said that Prime Minister Modi should have taken his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu to turmoil-affected Srinagar instead of Ahmedabad and unfurl the tricolour there.

"The Prime Minister calls himself 'Pant Pradhan'. All he does is travel abroad. He took Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Ahmedabad, why not to Lal Chowk in Srinagar? Why couldn't he have done a roadshow in Srinagar? We would have felt sense of pride towards our Prime Minister, if he had hoisted tricolour in Lal Chowk," he said.

Further training guns at the Centre, the Shiv Sena chief said that it does not endorse the definition of Hindutva which the BJP holds.

"The definition of Hindutva that BJP endorses is different. We don't believe in their definition. For us cow killing is cow killing and terrorism is terrorism. Shiv Sena united the Maratha cadre without doing any discrimination on the basis of caste and this is our strength... It was Aurangzeb, who created a divide and rule policy. We cannot be divided on the basis of caste," he added.

The two parties share a sour relationship, ever since the BJP has come to power in Maharashtra, the citadel of Shiv Sena.

The 'blow hot-blow cold' relationship between saffron allies was further strained earlier in the day after the latter announced that it would contest the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly and Lok Sabha elections alone.

The Shiv Sena often attacks the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Centre over a slew of issues in its editorial mouthpiece Saamna.