In praise for PM Modi, Aaditya Thackeray delivers a message to ministers

There has been great deal of cooperation between Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on battling the Covid-19 challenge, Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray has said.

“These three major entities have been in great cooperation and coordination with each other. That by far has kept politics aside during the time of the pandemic,” Thackeray, who is also Maharashtra’s minister for tourism, environment and protocol, told Hindustan Times in an interview.

Aaditya Thackeray’s surprise praise for PM Modi and Amit Shah in an interview to Hindustan Times comes a week after a war of words broke out between Uddhav Thackeray and Railways Minister Piyush Goyal on Twitter over the Shramik Specials to ferry back migrant labourers that carried on past midnight.

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Uddhav Thackeray was last month seen to be critical of the central government for allotting only half the 80 trains requested by the state for migrant workers, mostly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, who wanted to go home.

Piyush Goyal had promptly hit back, telling Maharashtra that he could arrange to send 125 trains for the stranded migrants provided the state makes sure that they do not run “empty”. Goyal also asked the state to send a list of stranded migrants who had to be accommodated in these trains and then fired a string of reminders on social media to drive home the point that it was the Shiv Sena-led coalition that was unprepared, not the railways.

Asked about this back-and-forth between the Shiv Sena government and the central minister, Aaditya Thackeray appeared to suggest that some amount of friction was inevitable when different parties are in power at the Centre and the state.

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“I feel that if you have two different parties or two different coalitions are ruling at the state and Centre, then there will always be those tussles,” the 29-year-old Thackeray said before going ahead to underscore that Uddhav Thackeray was in sync with PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. And this had helped in the fight against coronavirus disease.

“I don’t think this is the right time for any minister to speak about any politics,” Thackeray said.

The Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party have been bitter rivals after the Sena walked out of their alliance of 30 years over the chief minister’s chair. Uddhav Thackeray took over as chief minister in November last year in coalition with erstwhile rivals - Congress and the NCP - after a short spell of central rule.

Also read: ‘Not the right time for any minister to speak about politics,’ says Aaditya Thackeray

But Uddhav Thackeray, whose party frequently criticises the BJP-led central government, rarely directs his attacks at PM Modi or Shah.

When Uddhav Thackeray was staring at the possibility of missing the six-month deadline to become a member of the legislative council, Thackeray had sent an SOS to PM Modi for help. Within two days, Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari wrote to the Election Commission to hold elections to the legislative council that eventually led to Thackeray being elected a member of the council unopposed.