Mumbai: Launching a scathing attack at the Congress-led I.N.D.I.A. grouping, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday said he has doubts whether the other side would manage to secure the post of the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
The leader of the largest opposition party is Leader of the Opposition, however, for this, it must secure at least 10 per cent of the total seats of the Lok Sabha. In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress or any other opposition party could not muster 55 seats of the total 545 seats. “You have seen the gathering at Shivaji Park…there were depressed faces…they lack confidence…it appears that they have been herded together,” Shinde told reporters in Mumbai.
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Shinde, the chief leader of Shiv Sena, also hit out at his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray, who now heads Shiv Sena (UBT). “It is sad to see that he (Uddhav Thackeray) got only five minutes for his speech…he has buried the ideology and principles of Balasaheb, who had once said that he would not allow the Shiv Sena to become the Congress and if that happened, he would shut his shop,” he said. "Leaders of Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra will have to answer before the people what they have achieved by sitting near the memorial of freedom fighter Veer Savarkar with Rahul Gandhi who criticizes him…incidentally, the rally was held near the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and memorial of Balasaheb,” he said.
“At Shivaji Park, Balasaheb started his speech with 'all my Hindu brothers, sisters’… so why didn't the speech in the I.N.D.I.A. meeting start like this,’ he questioned.