In a stinging attack, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena President Raj Thackeray on Saturday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is known as a "Feku" (fibber) the world over for his penchant of resorting to lies.He said that since the past five years of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rule, Modi has been spreading "untruths" on everything, whether it be the IAF strikes or various government policies and promises like "Achhe Din", "Rs 15 lakh for every Indian", "Vikas", "employment", "demonetisation", "Made in India", etc."Now, even the US government's report has come out rejecting India's stand on the IAF strikes. Modi must reply to that," Thackeray said at a huge gathering at Shivaji Park this evening on the occasion of Maharashtra New Year, Gudi Padva.He also played an earlier video of Modi in Jammu and Kashmir and said that rather than appreciating the jawans, the PM had lodged cases against the brave soldiers who were engaged in fighting terrorists and the Pakistani army, braving great odds in those cold altitudes.Combining the rally to drum up support of the Opposition Congress-led Mahagathbandhan in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Thackeray said that over 100 people died in queues during demonetization and over 4.5 crore jobs have been lost since then (November 8, 2016), besides huge industrial losses all over the country.
However, he accused the PM of "only speaking out lies" and not replying to any of these major burning issues of public concern, nor showing courage to address a single press conference in his five years' rule as "he is scared of uncomfortable questions being raised by the media"."Instead, the BJP keeps raising different political cards, like the Hindu card, the Ram temple in Ayodhya, cow protection, politicizing the Pulwama attacks and sacrifices of our soldiers, exploiting the IAF actions. But the PM never discusses any of the real problems concerning the masses," Thackeray said.He charged Modi with changing names of all the schemes/policies originally launched by the previous Congress government, and claiming them to be (NDA-II) government's achievements."It is only when the Congress is defeated and the opposition parties come to power that we know the value of (Congress). We are witnessing this situation now. People are absolutely fed up with the BJP and the PM's lies," Thackeray rued.He also slammed Modi and BJP President Amit Shah of sidelining senior party leaders like L.K. Advani who built the party from scratch and brought it to the status of capturing power, but was deprived of the PM's post.Thackeray contended that the "nation is facing a crisis" of Modi and Shah, and vowed to work and ensure the crisis can be overcome, for which he will address around 8-10 rallies in the coming weeks, averaging to two for each of the four-phased elections in Maharashtra.