Eknath Shinde,
the new Maharashtra chief minister, had a sharp retort to make at Uddhav
Thackeray, Shiv Sena leader and Balasaheb Thackeray’s son after the latter made
comments attacking Shinde. Uddhav Thackeray, speaking to the media Tuesday,
said Shinde was an auto driver whose brakes had failed. Responding to this
remark, Eknath Shinde said the autorickshaw has overtaken the Mercedes, for his
government is the common man’s government. Uddhav Thackeray is often seen in a
Mercedes.

In a sharp
attack at the rebel leader, Uddhav Thackeray said, “The Assembly speech on
Monday made it clear as to when the conspiracy (of rebellion) was started,”
referring to Shinde’s first speech as Maharashtra chief minister. Shinde had
broken down during the speech talking about his dead children.

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Thackeray went
on to say: “The deputy CM (Devendra Fadnavis) was telling him (Shinde) to stop…but
the brakes of the vehicle had failed, how will it stop?”

Thackeray, who recently
lost his government and risks losing his party to Shinde, added: “Earlier, they
(BJP) used to call the MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) government as three-wheeler government,
now the one who drives a three-wheeler is running the government.”

Eknath Shinde
was a senior leader within the Shiv Sena hierarchy. His rift with the party
leadership came to the fore when he orchestrated cross voting in the Maharashtra
Assembly in course of the Rajya Sabha elections. He later went to a resort in Gujarat’s
Surat and then to Assam’s Guwahati in a bid to keep away from the leadership
and gather numbers. By the time he returned to Mumbai, he had 40 out of 55 Shiv
Sena MLAs with him.

Shinde’s chief
complaint against the Thackeray leadership, at least in public, was that the
Shiv Sena had moved away from the cause of Hindutva by allying with the
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress. He at first called for the
Shiv Sena to break out of the MVA alliance and form the government with BJP.
While Uddhav Thackeray wanted to meet Shinde, Shinde did not respond.

Thackeray’s
comments about an autorickshaw driver running the government of Maharashtra had
Shinde incensed. Thackeray had earlier also called him a backstabber. Reacting
to the auto driver comment, Eknath Shinde wrote on Twitter that auto’s speed
was so fast that Mercedes was left behind as this is the government of the common
man.”