Mumbai: State Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and ex-minister Ashish Shelar on Monday apologised for his statements if they had inadvertently hurt the sentiments of various ruling party leaders.
At a meeting in Palghar on Sunday, targeting Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray over his statement that though CAA would not affect anybody’s citizenship, NRC would not be implemented in Maharashtra, Shelar said: “This state is not your father’s property that you can talk of not implementing NRC.”
The statement created a furore in political circles on Monday with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Minister Jitendra Awhad and MP Supriya Sule slamming Shelar for his choice of words.
“Shelar may use such language, but we are not going to Gujarat to trace out his ‘fathers’ there. BJP is rattled because they have lost power in Maharashtra,” Awhad hit out.
Sule sternly admonished Shelar for his choice of words when it concerns the CM of the state, even as the Opposition BJP faced flak on social media.
Going on the backfoot, Shelar said that he had not made any personal remarks against anybody since that is not the BJP culture, but merely raised an issue.
“If my words may have hurt anyone, I hereby apologisea But our view is that the political parties or leaders standing behind those who celebrate Afzal Guru’s anniversary, insult the Constitution, threaten “tukde-tukde” of the country or support Sharjeel Imam, are ‘anti-Constitution’, and we will continue to question them,” Shelar said in a statement.
Thackeray’s statement has come in his first-ever interview after taking over as CM on November 28 with the Shiv Sena-run newspapers, “Saamana” and “Dopahar Ka Saamana”.
