In a sharp attack,
Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackery on Tuesday demanded that the Congress
should be derecognized and banned from fighting the 2019 elections as it was
propagating "an anti-national agenda".Reacting to the Congress
election manifesto, the NDA ally asked: "What kind of government they
(Congress) want - those of traitors and anti-nationals, or of patriots and
nationalists?"He said that such a party had no right to contest the
elections and the Election Commission must derecognize and bar the Congress
from the electoral battle.Terming the Congress manifesto promising to end
poverty in India within a decade as "full of lies", he said that even
Congress President Rahul Gandhi's grandmother, the late Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi, had promised 'garibi hatai' but nothing happened all these
years.Thackeray also countered the Congress arguments on the need to hold talks
with the Kashmiri separatists to resolve the Jammu and Kashmir
problems."There cannot be any talks with such separatists. We have always
been against negotiations with them," he said, while attending an election
rally for the BJP-Sena candidate in Palghar constituency.