Shinde retaliates to Uddhav's comment, says 'Auto left Mercedes behind'

|HT|

As Uddhav Thackeray took a jibe at Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde by calling him an auto driver whose brakes failed, Shinde gave it back to Uddhav as he tweeted, "The auto left the Mercedes behind'. "The government is for the people. There will be a difference in this government. Everyone will feel that this government works for them," Shinde said.

As the political tussle in Maharashtra continues days after Shinde's swearing-in as the new chief minister, at a meeting of Shiv Sena women's wing at Sena Bhawan on Tuesday, Uddhav referred to the incident when in the Assembly Fadnavis asked Shinde to stop talking. "But how will it stop. The brakes of the autorickshaw failed. Earlier, the BJP used to call the MVA government a three-wheeler government but now the person who drives a three-wheeler is running the government," Uddhav said.

Shinde took to Twitter to reply to the autorickshaw jibe and said, "The speed of the rickshaw over the speed of the Mercedes as this is the government of the common man."

Before joining politics, Eknath Shinde was an autorickshaw driver in Thane, while Mercedes is associated with the Thackerays.

The battle between the two factions of the Shiv Sena -- the Uddav faction and the Shinde faction -- now lies in the Supreme Court as Shinde proved his majority in the floor test on Monday.

Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said he was backstabbed by Shinde whom he gave the responsibility of the party while the NCP and the Congress -- the allies of the Maha Vikas Aghadi -- stood by Uddhav.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)