Sena won't ever leave Hindutva, says Uddhav

Mumbai: Even as Shiv Sena formed the government in Maharashtra with ideologically different parties NCP and Congress, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said that Hindutva ideology is indispensable to Sena and the party will not leave it.

"I am still with the ideology of 'Hindutva' and won't ever leave it," the Chief Minister said during the state assembly session.

At a press conference earlier this week, former CM Devendra Fadnavis had said that Sena compromised with its core ideology — Hindutva — by joining hands with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

"The Shiv Sena's Hindutva now rests at the feet of (Congress president) Sonia Gandhi. Everyone is seeing this," Fadnavis had said.

Speaking after BJP's Devendra Fadnavis' election as the Leader of Opposition, Uddhav said he learnt lot of things from the former chief minister.

He took a jibe at Fadnavis over the collapse of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance after the former refused to accept Sena's demand for equal power-sharing in the new government.

Thackeray, who called himself the "luckiest Chief Minister", also reserved a dig at Fadnavis' secretive swearing-in ceremony on Saturday. "I can assure this House and people of Maharashtra that I will not do anything at midnight.

I will be working for the interests of the people," he said. "In a way, I am the luckiest Chief Minister of Maharashtra because those who were in my opposition for the last 25-30 years have now become my friends and those who were my friends are now in the Opposition.

So, I honestly believe the Opposition party will not exist now because the Opposition party members are my friends," he said.