Raut challenges Fadnavis to call for municipal corporation elections
Mumbai, May 19 : UBT senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut on Friday challenged Maharashtra Deputy Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to hold corporation elections in the state, and said tongue-in-cheek “then they will know whose parrot was dead and which tiger is roaring”.
Raut’s comments are a rejoinder to Fadnavis’s Thursday remarks in Pune where the Deputy Chief Minister recounted the story of a king’s dead parrot to assert that UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray’s claims of the Assembly Speaker getting 16 Shiv Sena (Shinde) MLAs disqualified would be a pipedream after the recent Supreme Court judgement on the fight between the two Sena factions.
According to the story told by Fadnavis, a king was so fond of the parrot that when the bird died no one had the guts to tell him the truth for fear of being beheaded. Similarly, after the apex court refused to restore the Thackeray government, all claims of the Shiv Sena (UT) chief of getting back power had become meaningless, but no one in his party dared to present the true picture to him, Fadnavis had said.
The Supreme Court (SC) has asked Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to decide on the disqualification petitions filed by the rival camps of Shiv Sena, led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his former boss Uddhav. Narwekar is an MLA of the ruling BJP.
Raut on Friday returned the fire. “You look at the photos from the BJP executive meeting, some are sleeping, some are yawning, some are doing what else. In front of such dead people, Fadnavis was telling us how dead parrots are,” said Raut.
He challenged Fadnavis to hold elections to the state’s municipal corporations, which have been pending for long.
“The recent market committee election results are just a trailer. You call corporation elections then you will know whose parrots are flying,” he said.
Describing the Assembly Speaker as a “Mahatma”, Raut said: “We expect a good legal result from him. Fadnavis was saying, “The parrot is dead, now we will see whose parrot is flying”.Â
He also denied any rift in MVA and exuded confidence that it would remain united. Raut said initial talks are on among all constituents of the alliance about seat sharing for the next Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
