Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray with NCP and Congress leaders during the MVA rally ‘Vajramuth’, at BKC on Monday. Pic/Rane Ashish

“The people who try to break Mumbai into pieces will be torn apart by us. But since they see that separating the city from the state is impossible (despite attempts), they are reducing its significance in the country’s overall economy. Major things, offices, companies and industries that generate maximum revenue are being taken away from the city,” Thackeray said, reiterating that for the BJP, winning the Mumbai municipal corporation was paramount because it was eyeing the civic body’s massive fixed deposits. “This is just the beginning. Let’s knock them down in the elections. The people of Maharashtra will show to Amit Shah what it feels like to bite the dust,” he said, referring to the Union home minister’s resolve to finish the Uddhav Sena.

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Thackeray said chief minister Shinde, who talks about Balasaheb Thackeray’s ideology, should first understand the struggle of the sons of the soil who ensured that Mumbai remained in Maharashtra as its capital. “You wouldn’t have become the CM (if the struggle wasn’t there). You shouldn’t be a blind witness to the atrocities against Mumbai,” he said, calling out the government for ‘looting Mumbai and Maharashtra’ “by way of rampant corruption in the government and local bodies that are being administered by the babus under direct control of Mantralaya”.

Thackeray explained his party’s Hindutva and his partnership with the Congress and the NCP to a mixed crowd at the rally. “My Hindutva is nationalism. Their Hindutva is cow urine,” he said, while joking that the BJP workers may visit the venue the next day to purify it with cow urine. Congress’s former CM Ashok Chavan appealed to the MVA workers to stick together. “Voters don’t like ayaram gayaram. Our single-engine sarkar will come back to power. The double-triple engine sarkar doesn’t work for the people,” he said. State Congress president Nana Patole resolved to displace the governments in Delhi and Mumbai. NCP’s Jitendra Awhad and Sena’s Aaditya Thackeray and Sanjay Raut also addressed the attendees.