The truce between Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena, following clashes between workers of the two parties over senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar’s remarks about Sena chief Bal Thackeray in May, has turned out to be short-lived.
At a largely-attended rally here today, senior NCP leaders, including deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and home minister R.R. Patil, targeted Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray over the tenor of his diatribe against Ajit Pawar.
At a rally of RPI-Sena-BJP combine here yesterday, Uddhav had flayed Ajit Pawar for criticising his father and called him “nalayak” (worthless).
“We don’t come in anyone’s way but if someone crosses our path, our party workers know how to deal with him,” Ajit Pawar said on Friday. R.R. Patil also criticised Uddhav for his anti-Ajit Pawar tirade.
Last week, taking cue from the NCP, Sena chief Bal Thackeray had asked party workers to observe restraint after there were clashes between Sena and NCP workers at some places in the state.
State NCP president Madhukar Pichad had earlier asked party workers to observe restraint and desist from undertaking programmes like burning effigies and demonstrations in response to the Sena’s reaction.
This was after police resorted to mild cane-charge to disperse activists of Shiv Sena and NCP in Pune, during a demonstration by NCP to condemn an editorial in Samana, the saffron outfit’s mouthpiece, which contained some allegedly derogatory remarks against Ajit Pawar.