PHOTO: GAJANAN DUDHALKAR

What is your electoral plank for the civic elections?

This is the first time I am fighting elections and it is a tragedy that we will also have to talk about water, schools, roads, market, hospitals and more infrastructure. Fifty-nine years after Independence we are still talking to the voters on the same issues. What a shame. It shows that all the political parties are such a big failure.

What ails the political parties?

Lack of political will. There is a nexus between corporators and contractors. I will break this nexus if I am elected.

Why have political parties not been able to solve the city’s issues?

Basically kisi ka dhyaan nahin hain. Sab log paise khane mein lage hain...

All parties?

Yes, everybody — the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the BJP. They make one road and then dig it up in the next 15 days. If they make durable roads, how would they make money? Where will the political parties get their money from? They have to keep making and remaking roads all the time to fill their party coffers. Do you know that the budget for Mumbai roads is Rs 700 crores annually. All road work is deliberately shoddy because you need to make more money out of it. Where I live, there were good footpaths.

Where do you live?

At Shivaji Park. One day I saw them removing the footpaths and redoing it. I said why are you doing this again? Kaam nikaala hain.. Kaam nikalte hain paise khaane ke liye, doosra kuch nahin ho ta.. I live in Mumbai, I was born here and brought up here. The first time I went to Switzerland, I was thinking what the opposition party would fight on in that country as they have good roads, water, everything.

Who is responsible for all this?

The ministers who come from the interiors of Maharashtra have never seen good roads or hospitals, leave alone a shopping mall. So when they are elected and come to Mumbai, they think everything is fine here. It is only the Mumbaikars who suffer. These ministers live on Malabar Hill. They go to Mantralaya and then go back home. Where do they bother to visit the city to know its problems? They should all be put in Dahisar (a distant Mumbai suburb).

What is the Maharashtra Nava Nirman Sena’s political ideology?

I am trying to tell you that to solve the city’s problem you don’t need schisms…

The next generation will not ask about any isms, but about development.

But when you were with the Shiv Sena, you spoke about isms.

Prove it and and check my speeches…

You bashed up north Indians in the railway station at Kalyan when they came here seeking railway jobs.

They were abusing the Marathi man. Marathi aadmi ko aap gaali denge, aur hum kuch nahin kare?

What do you think of Islamic fundamentalism?

Any kind of fundamentalism, Hindu or Muslim fundamentalism is wrong. When I was in the Shiv Sena, I only spoke of development.

But the Shiv Sena is a Hindu fundamentalist party...

Was it the kind of party that went about bombing the city?

The Shiv Sena was indicted in the riots

Riots happen everywhere. Do you know the first communal riots in Mumbai happened between Parsis and Muslims? Even my Muslim friends were upset about the Mumbai blasts.

Whom do you blame in the Shiv Sena?

Everybody. Look at the Sena. There is only one genuine man and that is Balasaheb (Thackeray).

What went wrong?

After Balasaheb, the people who took over don’t care.

What is Balasaheb’s contribution to society and to politics?

Bahut kuch hai… What about the flyovers, the Bombay-Pune Expressway?.

What about all the criticism directed at you by Balasaheb?

I have nothing to say…

Who was more like a father to you, your own father Srikant Thackeray or Balasaheb Thackeray?

Balasaheb.

More than your father?

My father was from the music industry. I grew up in Matoshree with Balasaheb and lived there.

Did it hurt when he spoke negatively about you recently?

No, it didn’t as I understood the reasons for his diatribe.

Was it a painful decision to leave the Sena?

I didn’t have another option..

The other day, Balasaheb hit out at you.

I know why he is saying that. I don’t want to talk about it...

Where do you see Maharashtra in the next 10 years?

If it comes in my hand, chamatkar kar doonga main. You might balk at the word chamatkar because nobody has done it before.