File picture of Raj Thackeray.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Monday launched his Lok Sabha campaign, with attacks on the Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP while strongly supporting BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
Targetting the Shiv Sena led by his estranged cousin Uddhav Thackeray, Raj said that if Uddhav's party wanted his cooperation, it could have just called for a meeting, and there was no need to make statements like "we are ready to shake hands". (
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"In fact, BJP leaders Gopinath Munde and Nitin Gadkari sent several messages and even met me and sought my cooperation, but without giving any concrete ideas for an alliance for months," he said.
The MNS chief said that Mr Gadkari also asked him not to field candidates for the election, but he refused to oblige.
According to him, both Mr Gadkari and Mr Munde later told him that it was Uddhav who was not willing to cooperate with him or accept the MNS in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
"There was an editorial in Saamana which questioned my credentials ('aukaat'). In this election, I will prove my 'aukaat', and all my MPs will support Modi," he said.
Raj also referred to media reports which labelled him as "a stooge of the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party" for talking to the BJP.
"I do everything openly, not in private," he said, and praised Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as a suitable candidate for the country's top job.
Raj said that though the Shiv Sena was in alliance with the BJP for more than 25 years, it was he who had gone to check out the progress and development of Gujarat.
"In 2010, when the Gujarat chief minister was a nobody in the Indian political scene, I was the first person to declared openly that Modi was a fit candidate for PM.
"I advised Modi to develop a national image like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi or Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but that is misconstrued as his criticism," Raj said.
On Uddhav's comment that the NCP would not be welcomed in the NDA, Raj said: "If so, then why did Shiv Sena go and beg NCP chief Sharad Pawar for a plot of land for constructing a memorial for Bal Thackeray?"
"They run the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and have sold so many plots, but could not arrange for one plot for the memorial. Who were they fighting all these years, against Afghanistan or Vietnam?" Raj said.
Targetting Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, he said Mr Gandhi's party has ruined the country and that it should be thrown out in the election.