Bal Thackeray Says Sainiks Would have Made ‘Tandoori’ of Azmi

For yesterday’s mayhem in Maharashtra Assembly, Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray has held SP leader Abu Asim Azmi ‘responsible’ and said that his party men would have made a ‘tandoori’ or roast of somebody like Azmi for having hurt Marathi pride.

Thackeray, in an editorial of his party mouthpiece Saamna, said that despite being elected from Maharashtra, Azmi didn’t take oath in Marathi and was therefore beaten by the MNS MLAs.

He stressed that the Sena was founded on the issue of Marathi pride and in the past it had run campaigns against the use of Hindi and English in the state legislature, particularly by its senior member Diwakar Raote.

“If somebody like Azmi had come in Raote’s hands, he would have made a ‘tandoori’ out of him, and removed his skin,” the editorial declared.

“That (Marathi pride) has been the Shiv Sena’s philosophy always and would also remain in the future,” he noted.

Nevertheless, Thackeray rapped the MNS for unparliamentarily behaviour of its MLAs inside the assembly, saying that nobody can back the violence and ruckus created by the MNS members in the assembly on Monday.

“The proceedings of the assembly or parliament must be carried out as per rules and decorum, it cannot be reduced to an ‘akhada’ (wrestling pit) or a vegetable market.”

In the meantime, in reaction to Thackeray’s views, SP state president Abu Asim Azmi said that Bal Thackeray was ‘approaching the last stages of his life and has lost his mental balance’.

“In fact, despite all his efforts the Shiv Sena could not come to power again and he is feeling very upset, so he talks anything,” Azmi said here Tuesday.

The Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine lost the Maharashtra assembly elections held Oct 13.