Sena doesn't need to change its flag to prove Hindutva: Uddhav Thackeray

In a dig at his estranged cousin and MNS chief Raj Thackeray who is apparently reshaping his politics with the Hindutva agenda in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said the Shiv Sena doesn't need to change the party flag to prove its Hindutva.

Uddhav Thackeray also said the BJP was not the "flag bearer" of Hindutva. The chief minister made these comments at a meeting of the party legislators and district presidents here.

"I don't have to prove my Hindutva, because it is the Hindutva of late Balasaheb (Thackeray). It is pure. I have not changed the flag of my party. One man, one flag...this is decided. The world knows what our Hindutva is," a Sena functionary quoted the CM as saying during the meeting while replying to a query on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

He also quoted Uddhav Thackeray as saying that the BJP is not the "flag-bearer" of Hindutva. Uddhav Thackeray's veiled attack came on a day when the MNS organised a huge march in Mumbai for eviction of Bangladeshi and Pakistani "infiltrators" from India, which culminated in a rally. Addressing the rally in south Mumbai,

Raj Thackeray demanded a strict implementation of the CAA and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the country. Raj Thackeray also warned of a "befitting reply" to rallies being held against the CAA and the NRC, and said "a morcha will be answered with a morcha, a stone with a stone and a sword with a sword". In an interview to his party mouthpiece 'Saamana', Uddhav Thackeray, who heads the Shiv Sena, had said that his party had never abandoned Hindutva though it joined ideologically incompatible NCP and Congress to form a government in the state.

In a development that is viewed as his endeavour to fill the Hindutva vacuum, Raj Thackeray had last month replaced the old striped flag of the MNS and re-launched it in a new saffron avatar with the royal seal of Chhatrapati Shivaji.