Raj Thackeray accuses BJP of stirring conflict over Chhath Puja, manufacturing fear

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Friday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for manufacturing fear to win elections and said the countdown for its ouster from power at the Centre and in the states has begun. He accused the BJP and the “toxic social media ecosystem” it has nurtured of making desperate efforts in Mumbai and Maharashtra to stir up a conflict between Marathis and North Indians over Chhath Puja ahead of Uttar Pradesh elections.

In a post on X, he said the BJP is circulating reels on social media depicting the rituals and what they frame as a cultural invasion stemming from them. “As if that were not enough, they even attempted to play Bhojpuri music at certain railway stations in Mumbai, which was promptly shut down by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena,” he said, a day after MNS staged protests against Chhath Puja and the playing of songs over the railway public address system.

He added the BJP remains frustrated because the conflict they so desire has failed to materialise. “All this frantic maneuvering is being orchestrated with an eye on the elections in Uttar Pradesh.”

Thackeray said the BJP’s “think tank” appears to have suffered a decline in its intellectual capacity. He added that the divide-and-rule tactic, which they have relied upon for years to win elections, is no longer effective. “Whenever Lok Sabha elections approach, they stoke Hindu-Muslim tensions. They have women wearing burqas through public grounds and parks, aiming to frighten the public by suggesting that the other has now encroached upon their own spaces.”

He said social media is full of videos, often staged, featuring individuals, including men, dressed in burqas to manufacture fear. “When state-level elections draw near, they sow the seeds of caste-based hatred. Last year, to win the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections, they manufactured Gujarati versus Marathi conflict, centered around the issue of feeding pigeons.”

He said the BJP cannot win elections based on their actual performance. “Instead, they engineer conflicts between groups and secure victories on the back of the blood spilled in those clashes. Of course, this is largely a superficial spectacle, as the real work is done by the Election Commission. But it provides them with a convenient narrative to explain how they achieved their victory.”

He said the BJP and its mentors rattled, fearing that once out of power, the ghosts of everything they have done over the last 12 to 14 years will come back to haunt them. “Regardless, whatever is destined to happen to them will happen.”

Thackeray said that he has told Marathis that there is no need to fight on the battlefield of their choosing. “That is not the Maharashtra way. They may have forgotten Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s guerrilla warfare tactics, but we must remember it. We shall decide how and when to respond using these tactics. We must not fall into the traps they have laid for their own selfish ends.”

He accused the BJP of ruining the nation, destroying social harmony and tolerance. “The same is happening in Maharashtra. Acting on directives from the Centre, they are effectively selling off Maharashtra piece by piece, to a single industrialist and his cronies, stripping the state bare from every direction.”

He accused the BJP of beginning to hollow out the Sahyadri mountain range, the land where Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and his loyal warriors once lived. “Forests are being handed over, lands are being signed away. Whatever that industrialist sets his eyes upon in Maharashtra is being gifted to him. Yet we remain seemingly indifferent.”

He warned against taking their restraint as a sign of cowardice should anyone attempt to incite a cultural frenzy under the guise of religious worship, plunder Maharashtra and tarnish its cultural heritage. Thackeray asked North Indian and Gujarati communities to realise that “these people are merely pitting you against us to serve their own selfish interests”.

He warned that if they choose to join them and confront, be advised this is Maharashtra. “This is the land of the Marathas.”

BJP spokesperson Keshav Upadhye said MNS does not have any issues left and takes up trivia. “MNS should know that Chhath Puja is a festival of Biharis and not Uttar Pradesh.’’