Fight should now be launched to change govt that is not accountable: Uddhav

Mumbai, Jul 19: Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday attacked the BJP-led Centre, saying a fight should now be launched to change a government that is not accountable. Addressing a rally in Mumbai, he accused the government of stealing the future of the youth, referring to alleged irregularities in the NEET exam and student suicides tied to it, which have prompted activist Sonam Wangchuk to launch a hunger strike. The criticism of the government by Thackeray, whose party recently saw six of its Lok Sabha MPs switching over to the rival Shiv Sena, led by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, came on the eve of Parliament’s monsoon session. “A fight should now be launched to change a government that is not accountable. And this fight is just about Sonam Wangchuk,” he said. Thackeray asked how Wangchuk, who built solar tents for soldiers working in sub-zero temperatures and created ice stupas to address water woes in Ladakh, can be described as “anti-national”. He said the erstwhile UPA government led by the then prime minister Manmohan Singh sent a delegation to hold talks with social activist Anna Hazare when he was on an indefinite hunger strike in 2011. “Why did the Modi government not do so with Wangchuk?” he asked. Activist Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike since June 28 over alleged irregularities in the NEET and several students’ suicides in the wake of the cancellation of the paper earlier.