MUMBAI: Shiv Sena President and Ex-Chief Minister Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday warned that democracy in India is at peril due to to the "monstrous ambitions" of the BJP to control everything.
"A conspiracy to wipe out all the opposition and regional parties in the country is going momentum... The ruling party (BJP) is scared of the opposition. It shows their inefficiency," said Thackeray, in the concluding part of a marathon "birthday interview" to Sanjay Raut, Executive Editor of the Sena mouthpieces "Saamana" and "Dopahar Ka Saamana" newspapers.
He said that democracy doesn't mean winning polls every time, be it any party - Shiv Sena, NCP, Congress, BJP and so on - nobody gets consecutive victories, all are winners or losers and new parties keep emerging, shine for some time - "that is a real democracy".
However, the gargantuan aspirations of the BJP of keeping everything under their heels coupled with whatever they say is genuine, makes them apprehensive of the opposition, Thackeray said.
In the words of the late Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee - "Power comes and goes, but the country should not," Thackeray said. What's the distinction? Power comes and goes... and returns... yet it makes no difference to me." He emphasised the necessity for all political parties to unify and work for the country, otherwise they will be labeled as "enemy" of our nation, since the people face enormous difficulties such as inflation, unemployment, and so on.
Thackeray slammed the BJP-led government for harassing the opposition by arresting their leaders first and framing the charges later, "defaming them in a nasty and perverted manner aimed to harm their careers."
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