He said he would continue to practice saying “Jai Bhavani” and “Jai Shivaji”.

Mumbai:

Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said he has received a notice from the Election Commission of India (ECI) to remove “Jai Bhavani” and “Hindu” from the party’s new national anthem word, but he would not abide by it.

Addressing a press conference here, Thackeray said the demand to remove “Jai Bhavani” from the national anthem was an insult to Maharashtra.

Thackeray said his party has composed a national anthem to promote its new poll symbol “mashal” (burning torch) and the ECI has demanded that words like “Hindu” and “Jai Bhavani” be removed from it.

Thackeray said, “Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj founded the Swarajya Samaj with the blessings of Goddess Tulia Bhavani. We will not demand votes in the name of the Goddess or Hinduism. This is an insult and we will not tolerate it.”

The Sena UBT chief said he will continue the practice of saying “Jai Bhavani” and “Jai Shivaji” in public meetings.

“If the pollsters take action against us, they will have to tell us that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked people to say Jai Bajrang Bali and press the EVM button while campaigning for the Karnataka Assembly elections, they What was done. Amit Shah told people to vote for the BJP to get free Ram Lala Darshan in Ayodhya,” he said.

He said the Shiv Sena (UBT) has asked the ECI whether the law has been changed and whether votes can now be demanded in the name of religion.

“The poll body is yet to respond to our letter and the reminder sent by us. In the reminder, we had said that if the law changes, we will also say ‘Har Har Mahadev’ at election rallies,” the former chief minister said , his father Balasaheb Thackeray was barred from voting and contesting elections for six years because of his support for the Hindutva during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure as prime minister Main party election.

He claimed that the party had also asked the ECI to clarify whether the invocations of religion by Prime Minister Modi and Amit Shah during the recent parliamentary elections amounted to “corrupt practices” (under the Representation of the People Act).

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