Mumbai 25 August : The “khoke” (crore) dispute continues to shake Maharashtra political affairs for the fifth consecutive day with the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s team and opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) fighting each other on Thursday.The Shinde Group legislators lampooned Shiv Sena leader and former minister Aditya Thackeray, displaying posters on which he is portrayed riding one of his horses in the opposite direction in front of the Vidhan Bhavan building.
The banners featured slogans such as “Yuvrajanchi Disha Chukli’ (the prince did not follow the route) Maharashtra’s ‘pa pu or ‘param pujya’ calling him the prince pappu of Maharashtra as Shinde Group MLAs raised slogans to protest MVA legislators.
The posters also mocked Aditya Thackeray for doing ‘nothing in the time he was the minister of tourism and instead he was traveling around the state in a manner that ‘damage caused the Shiv Sena its government.
On his own, Aditya Thackeray — the son of the former CM Uddhav Thackeray struck back by reciting the familiar “50 Khoke’ (Rs 50 crore in street slang) slogan that hints at how Shinde Group MLAs allegedly got the massive sum to switch sides and to overthrow the MVA government of Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress in June.
Aditya Thackeray has even has joined in the MVA chorus of “50 Khoke, Chidley Boke’ (Rs 50 crore, angry cats)as well as “gaddars” (traitors) as well as the other slogans that have shook the Shinde Group in the past five days of the monsoon session of the legislature which led to an exchange of fighting and jostling on Wednesday.
He challenged the 40 Shinde Group MLAs to quit their seats and run for election again by saying, “Let the electorate and the masses decide who’s right or wrong, once and for all time.”
The Shinde Group hit back by insisting that he should step down of his Worli seat, where he was seated with the support of other legislators as well as an ex-Mayor.Aditya Thackeray said he would quit if the MLAs of the rival group quit.
“What they are consuming in is called ‘Ravan Raj”, not Ram Rajya ‘.
I am sorry for them, as the 40 MLAs are not getting the benefits they had been promised.They should be addressing the problems of the people, farmers and young people,” said Aditya Thackeray.
The Congress-NCP MLAs also chanted slogans calling for a ‘wet dry drought to be declared in the state, compensation for farmers, and other issues.
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