Bal Thackeray misses Dussehra rally, suggests he is ready to bid farewell

The annual Dussehra rally of Shiv Sena at Shivaji Park managed to draw crowds but the fanaticism was missing probably because of the absence of Bal Thackeray His voice still rang through the ears of supporters in the form of a prerecorded speech that was played out And the Sena chief seemed to indicate that he was now on the verge of hanging up his boots Show of strength Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aaditya during the partyrsquos rally at Shivaji Park yesterday ldquoI am tired now Earlier I used to give speeches for 60 minutes would attend several programmes on a single day and tours wouldnrsquot tire me If it had been possible I would have come However I need the lsquoshaktirsquo and would ask God to give me that But I will surely come next time I have been the Sena Pramukh for 45 years all because of you If I have forced Uddhav or Aaditya on you then make your own choices The way you aided me aid Uddhav and Aaditya from now on Show the same trust and support for them too and let Shiv Sena become the strongest partyrdquo he said The Shiv sainiks at the rallyu00a0PicsRane Ashish and Neha Parekh The Tiger that roars always was yesterday coughing and his tone was frail His poor condition was evident as one could sense him gasping for breath while delivering the speech But even in this state he managed to take some digs at the government and his alltime lsquofavouritersquo the Gandhi family ldquoWe need to get the panchkadi group of five mdash the three Gandhis Sonia Rahul and Priyanka Robert Vadra and Ahmed Patel out of this country so India is safe We had Mughals then British and now an Italian Throw Sonia out of powerrdquo he said Speaking on his health Thackeray said ldquoOnce a patient goes to the doctor hersquos turned into an experiment I was in Lilavati for nine days But nothing has happened to my heart My heart is with all of you ndash the Marathi manoos and Shivsainiks My condition is poor I canrsquot even walk now But my heart will always remain with you and yours with merdquo However the defeat of Sena in Dadar during BMC polls did compel Thackeray to touch upon the division of Marathi votes ldquoSena was conceived here in Dadar and the Sena Bhawan is situated here However some people are now dividing the Marathi manoosrdquo he said Thackeray claimed the country currently lacks a leader ldquoWe donrsquot have a leader In Nanded one Muslim organisation from Hyderabad gets 11 corporators How What have we been doing for all these years that a foreign party wins so many seatsrdquo he said He also mentioned that because of the way Congress leaders were getting clean chits India had become a nation of cheats According to Thackeray he couldnrsquot make sense of a rally being carried out in Mumbra when Malala got shot in Pakistan Hindutva was back in vogue with Thackeray senior asking his men to see to it that only a sainik gets elected as mayor of Sambhajinagar Aurangabad Even Uddhav reminded people of the same ldquoHindutva is the forgotten issue and Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are occupying the country now The people of a community created ruckus on August 11 Azad Maidan incident and one of them was caught in Bihar What was the need for Bihar government to poke its nose Mumbai wouldnrsquot have been Mumbai if Shiv Sena hadnrsquot come out on the streets in 1993rdquo Uddhav said On the issue of inflation Uddhav said ldquoThanks to inflation the size of the Ravana idol is growing smaller Soon Ravana would join us and support us in burning down inflation Manmohanrsquos wife had said that increase the prices of everything but not of gas When a PM doesnrsquot listen to his wife how do we expect him to listen to the publicrdquo Neither Uddhav nor Bal Thackeray let go of any opportunity to stress the point that only Shiv Sena is fighting for the Marathi manoos ldquoRemember this it was Shiv Sena that carried out the protest in favour of MHADA tenants not anyone else The MHADA homes are in a shambles and it seems the government is waiting for these homes to collapse for the Marathi manoos to run away from Mumbai so these lands can be handed over to buildersrdquo said Uddhav Despite not being physically present Bal Thackeray managed to get the maximum applause from the crowdu00a0