Raj Thackeray, nephew of BalaShaeb Thackeray or grand son of Prabodhankar Thackeray (guess he prefers himself been called that) has been in news for all the wrong reasons. When Raj split from Shiv Sena and started his own outfit called Maharashtra NavNirman Sena (MNS), a lot of people had a lot of expectations from him. When he was in Sena, he definitely was thought to be the successor of BalaShaeb. He was almost a reduction photo copy of then Sena Supremo! The same aggressive way of talking was a definite crowd puller for Sena.
So when he started his own outfit, there were a lot of expectations from him. I have a view that we need more young leaders in politics who should be replacing the Ancient politicians and Raj fitted the bill. His initial speeches were quite promising and a definite structure for his party. I was quite hopeful when he took up problems of Mumbai initially and thought there is someone who would actually take up issues like infrastructure, pollution, corruption etc in Mumbai to make it a true world class Metropolitan.
After his speech on 2nd February on Hooting out Non-Maharashtrians from Mumbai, I didn’t have a slightest doubt that all he wanted was to take the Extremist Marathi votes from Sena. Rather he was gearing up to rope up the Marathi Votes which were with Sena and now has lost their grip! Not giving too much of thought to it, I comfortably forgot about this issue only to read the news that Raj has a Rally at Shivaji park and to find that he has given rights to only Marathi media to show it live. As a tradition, Thackeray Speech is always entertaining so I switched on the TV for the live coverage. Well the ‘latest’ Thackeray didn’t disappoint me!
The Speech started with a clichéd line from Thackeray Sr old speech “Ha karyakram aaikayacha ahe baghayacha nahi” and then what came was just Justificaltion of his earlier speech. After the justification was done, there was another attack on the “Uttar Bhartiyas” and more than that on “Beduk ” (Amar Singh) and Abu Azmi. That part was quite entertaining, entertaining like one of NO.1 movies of Govinda, don’t apply your mind - watch, listen, forget!
After the whole speech was over, I was still trying to understand the crux of it. Why in this world did he give that speech? There was no talk of him trying to develop the state, country or for that matter his and my Beloved “Mumbai”, no talk on electricity problem, no word on famine and farmers committing suicide. Can you believe it, there was no comment on the ruling party either!!
So Mr. Raj, Why should I vote for you, all you do is instigate people against each other, take out your personal vengeance on other politicians and not even try to understand the real problems let alone solving them! That’s just emotional Politics!
