Mumbai: "We can defeat a thousand (Narayan) Ranes... It is not easy to challenge us...This is a party of machos. Anyone who dares us, will be reduced to dust," the Shiv Sena said on Thursday.
The party was gloating over the defeat of Congress heavyweight and former Maharashtra chief minister Narayan Rane in the state assembly by-poll from Bandra East constituency on Wednesday.
In a no-holds barred attack, the Shiv Sena said the people of Bandra East have shown the door not only to Rane, but also to the "offsprings of the Nizams" - referring to the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leaders, the Owaisi brothers, hailing from Hyderabad, an erstwhile princely state ruled by the Nizams.
By putting up Rane, the Congress has 'disrobed' itself in public and even Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar must have heard the Sena Tiger's roar, said an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamana on Thursday.
Pointing out how doubts were raised about the by-poll's outcome in the backyard of 'Matoshri', the family home of the late Shiv Sena founder-patriarch Bal Thackeray, the party said that "a traitor (Rane) has been trounced... and blown off like a dried leaf."
The Sena said the "traitor who backstabbed Bal Thackeray" has lost by a 20,000-vote margin. In October 2014 assembly elections from Kudal constituency, he had lost by 10,000 votes.
"What is Rane? The next time, this arrogant and treacherous man will be wiped off with at least a three-fold defeat margin, we have no doubts," the Sena declared.
The edit pointed out how it was due to the Shiv Sena that Rane earned name and fame, and was catapulted as the party's chief minister in 1989 during the first Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance government in Maharashtra.
Warning that the people of Bandra East, who packed off Rane and the Owaisis, would not forgive "such snakes spewing venom", the Sena vowed that nobody can henceforth stop the flying horse (Ashwamedh) called Shiv Sena.
The edit came in response to the Congress' embarrassing defeat in Bandra East on Wednesday at the hands of a political greenhorn -- Shiv Sena candidate Trupti Sawant, widow of the former party legislator and strongman Bala Sawant.
In contrast, Prahaar, a newspaper owned by the Rane family lauded Narayan Rane for taking up challenge in Bandra East despite heavy adversities and yet putting up a spectacular performance.
"Hence, this election should be termed as 'Rane fought, Congress lost... he secured 33,703 votes compared to the last election when the Congress candidate in Bandra East had forfeited his poll security deposit," Prahaar said.
