Fadnavis heckled at Bal Thackeray’s death anniversary function

PTI, Nov 17, 2019, 3:56 PM IST

Mumbai: Former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was on Sunday subjected to sloganeering by a section of Shiv Sena workers as he left Shivaji Park in the metropolis after paying tribute to Bal Thackeray on his ninth death anniversary.

Some Sena workers in close proximity to the former CM’s convoy were seen shouting in Marathi Fadnavis’ assembly poll campaign slogan: ‘I will be back (as CM)’ along with the Sena’s traditional ‘Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj ki jai’ war cry.

Fadnavis and his entourage, which included several senior BJP leaders, moved on without reacting to the jibes.

There were no Shiv Sena leaders, except Uddhav Thackeray’s PA Milind Narvekar, when Fadnavis arrived at Shivaji Park to pay tribute to the founder of the Maharashtrian party.

Earlier in the day, Fadnavis had tweeted a video containing some of the late Sena patriarch’s rousing speeches, and had added his voice-over as a tribute.

The Sena and the BJP contested the October Assembly polls together and won 161 seats between them, before the Uddhav Thackeray-led party’s insistence on equal sharing of the chief ministerial tenure led to acrimony and stalemate in government formation.

Following weeks of bitter political drama, the Sena is currently in the process of forming a non-BJP government with support from Congress and Nationalist Congress Party.