Raj Thackeray says BJP is using Chhath Puja to inflame Mumbai ahead of UP polls

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray has hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), alleging that it has pushed the Chhath Puja issue into the middle of politics so as to stir up social and cultural friction in Mumbai.

Thackeray made the charge in a post on X on Friday. He said the BJP and the network of social media accounts around it were trying to turn communities in Maharashtra against one another, with the coming Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in mind. According to him, videos and reels connected to Chhath Puja were being pushed around online to raise the temperature. These are his allegations.

He also spoke of Bhojpuri songs being played at a few railway stations in Mumbai, which he described as an effort to manufacture a quarrel. The MNS, he said, had protested against this afterwards.

Thackeray tied the BJP's prospects to the Gen Z protests. In his view, the party's slide out of power, at the Centre as well as in the states, started after those movements. He accused it of leaning on divisive methods, among them religious and caste polarisation, to win elections.

Recalling earlier rows, he pointed to the Hindu-Muslim divide that surfaces at election time and to the Marathi-Gujarati tension that followed the dispute over feeding pigeons in Mumbai. His argument was that the BJP wants people to fight each other so that their attention moves away from governance and everyday public problems.

The MNS chief urged Marathi-speaking people and party workers not to be provoked by confrontations that are being engineered on purpose. Invoking the guerrilla warfare tactics of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, he said Maharashtra should itself choose when and how to answer, instead of being dragged into fights on terms set by its political rivals.

He warned that any attempt to create cultural unrest under the cover of religious festivals would not be tolerated or taken lightly.

Thackeray further accused the BJP of damaging the country's social harmony. He claimed that the land, forests and natural resources of Maharashtra were being handed over to one particular industrialist. Voicing concern over how the state's resources were being used, he asked the Marathi community to keep a close watch on what is going on around them.

He closed the statement with another appeal to Marathi people and MNS workers to stay vigilant and avoid walking into a political trap. The right reply, he said, would be given at the right time.