17 April,2019 03:16 PM IST | | mid-day online desk
Nawab Malik
After the Maharashtra BJP sought to know which Lok Sabha candidate would incur expenses of the poll rallies of Thackeray, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) spokesperson Nawab Malik dared the government to carry out raids at the home of MNS chief Raj Thackeray, who has been asking party workers to vote against the ruling BJP.
Maharashtra BJP's question came since MNS has not fielded any candidate for the Lok Sabha polls.
Thackeray, who supported the BJP in the 2014 polls, has already addressed a few public meetings in Nanded, Solapur and Kolhapur and is expected to hold rallies in Satara and Baramati, where the NCP has fielded its sitting MPs Udayanraje Bhosale and Supriya Sule, respectively.
The MNS leader's move asking his party workers to vote against the BJP this time is likely to help the electoral cause of the opposition Congress and NCP. "The government should conduct raids at Raj Thackeray's residence if it has guts," Malik told reporters on Tuesday.
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"Thackeray backed the BJP in the last (Lok Sabha) elections. But since he is addressing rallies opposing Modi now, the details of expenses of his rallies are being sought," he claimed. The BJP on Saturday wrote to state Chief Electoral Officer(CEO) seeking to know which Lok Sabha candidate would incur the cost of Thackeray's ongoing political rallies.
In a letter addressed to CEO Ashwani Kumar, senior BJP minister Vinod Tawde said Thackeray has been holding political rallies across the state, despite theMNSnot contesting the Lok Sabha elections.
Last week, in a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) President Raj Thackeray said on Friday that the term 'Pradhan Sevak was first coined by Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
He said that at the Nehru Memorial Museum in Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi, there is a plaque in which Pandit Nehru's quote is prominently embossed: "Is desh ki janta hame Pradhan Mantri na kahe, pratham sevak kahe."
(With inputs from PTI)
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