Mumbai:
After back-to-back rapid-fire editorials against Narendra Modi in his party newspaper, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray modulated his criticism of the BJP leader today, stating that he is "not an enemy."
Mr Thackeray said at a press conference this afternoon that Mr Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, "is doing good work." But, he cautioned, "the actions of his publicists could boomerang."
This morning, in an article, Mr Thackeray derided Mr Modi for devoting a recent trip to flood-ravaged Uttarakhand to rescue tourists and pilgrims from Gujarat who were stranded there. Some reports say Mr Modi and a team of bureaucrats managed to pull out 15,000 people in a day with chartered flights and luxury buses.
"Most of the rescue work is being carried out by the Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. They don't discriminate on the basis of the victims' state of origin or religion," Mr Thackeray stressed.
His running down of what has been dubbed in the media as Mr Modi's "Rambo Act" followed Monday's article in which Mr Thackeray appeared to warn the chief minister's party, the BJP, to re-think plans to project Mr Modi as its prime ministerial candidate.
Mr Modi's elevation to campaign chief led to the powerful Bihar party, the Janata Dal (United) or JD(U), ending its alliance with the BJP. Like the Shiv Sena, the JDU was a member of the main opposition coalition that's led by the BJP.
Mr Thackeray suggested in an editorial yesterday that placing Mr Modi as the face of its campaign will prevent the BJP from collecting allies who are crucial in posing a challenge to the ruling coalition led by the Congress."Do new allies grow on trees?" was one of the questions he put to the BJP in his article yesterday.