Aaditya Thackeray blasts the BJP over Sainiks’ hoisting flag in Srinagar

The Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray on Friday took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over an attempt by Shiv Sainiks to hoist the national flag at Srinagar's Lal Chowk.

"It is bad to receive a challenge to hoist the national flag in our own country. What is more bad is that those Shiv Sainiks and Indians (who attempted to hoist the flag) were detained in a state, the Deputy Chief Minister (Nirmal Singh) of which, belongs to a party (referring to the BJP), which gives lessons on nationalism," Aaditya tweeted.

The Jammu unit of the Shiv Sena had sent a team to hoist the national flag in Srinagar following National Conference president Farooq Abdullah's remarks on Pakistan- occupied Kashmir (POK) last week.

"They (Centre and BJP) are talking about raising the flag in PoK. I ask them to go and raise the tricolour at Lal Chowk in Srinagar. They cannot even do that and they are talking about PoK," Abdullah had said.

He further said that such people, referring to the Sainiks who went to hoist the flag, should be given support by the government irrespective of the party they belong to.

Meanwhile, in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana', the Sena said it is impossible to believe the country is independent if people are not allowed to chant 'Bharat mata ki jai'.

"If the national flag can be hoisted everywhere but hoisting it in Kashmir is a crime, how can we say it is our government there?" the editorial questioned.

The Sena further said that prior to elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had claimed he would make Pakistan Occupied Kashmir a part of India but that did not happen.

"Then Farooq Abdullah throws a challenge. We thought BJP ministers would accept his challenge and hoist the tricolour. But they did't do so and thus we had to answer Abdullah," the Sena said.