Mumbai, June 19 (IANS) Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday delivered a scathing attack against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Eknath Shinde-led faction.

Reacting sharply to speculation that his lawmakers are on the verge of breaking away, Thackeray warned that if the opposition continues to destabilise his party under names like “Operation Tiger,” he would be forced to deploy a counter-strategy.

“If they keep poaching our MPs or MLAs using ‘Operation Tiger,’ we too will have to carry out ‘Operation Lotus’ against them,” he declared.

He was speaking at the rally organised on the occasion of Shiv Sena’s 60th anniversary.

His speech came amid intense political turbulence in Maharashtra, triggered by widespread rumours of “Operation Tiger”, a purported bid by the ruling alliance to engineer a defection of six Lok Sabha MPs from the Thackeray camp.

Using a satirical analogy circulating on social media, he mocked the ruling dispensation’s terminology. He said a gold thief caught by police tells them, “Don’t call it a theft, call it Operation Gold.” Even doctors, he added, are now confused whether they are performing a surgery or committing a theft.

“If this is how the country’s politics is going to run, we will all have to come together and perform an operation on their ‘Lotus’,” he remarked.

Directing his ire at the BJP leadership, Thackeray questioned the need to break parties from within rather than engage in direct political dialogue.

On patriotism, he said instead of engineering defections, the BJP should call them openly. “We are not Pakistanis. My family has a rich history of serving this land. If your lineage has one, speak up. We are patriots, in fact, a shade more patriotic than you.”

On Hindutva, Thackeray accused the BJP of practising a fraudulent version of faith. “This Hindutva does not belong to the cow-urine-drinking crowd; that is their facade (Bhondutva). This saffron flag belongs to the Warkaris and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Anyone who creates divisions within the saffron fold cannot be a true Hindu. Those with adulterated blood should not hold this flag.”

Thackeray strongly dismissed rumours that Shiv Sena (UBT) is planning to merge with the Indian National Congress. Drawing on the party’s historical trajectory, he shared an anecdote from the Emergency era featuring veteran political figure Rajni Patel.

According to him, Patel had once tried to corner the party’s founder, Bal Thackeray, demanding he sign a letter to merge the Shiv Sena into the Congress. “People are still making noise that the Shiv Sena will merge into the Congress,” he said.

“We stayed with the BJP for 30 years and never merged with them. Why would we merge into the Congress now? The reality is quite the opposite; the situation is turning such that the BJP itself will end up merging into the Shinde-led Sena,” Thackeray remarked.

He also publicly slammed Dharashiv MP Omprakash Raje Nimbalkar, who recently suggested in a media interview that Thackeray’s health issues prevented him from campaigning actively, adding that Aaditya Thackeray should have toured more.

Hitting back, Thackeray questioned how these leaders won their seats if he had not campaigned.

“They say I don’t meet people, I don’t tour. If I weren’t travelling or campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections, how on earth did you [Nimbalkar] get elected? I held multiple massive rallies across every single constituency. That is the reason these people won,” he asserted.

The Foundation Day rally highlighted a deep ideological and political battle ahead, as Maharashtra closely watches whether the rumoured “Operation Tiger” materialises or if Thackeray moves forward with his promised counter-offensive.

–IANS

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