Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray has said anyone who threatens the workers of his party during the ongoing election campaign will be "made to sleep on ice slab", sparking a war of words with rival Sena leader Ramdas Kadam.
Speaking in Dapoli in coastal Maharashtra on Thursday, he dubbed as "traitors" Kadam and his son, local MLA Yogesh Kadam, who belong to the Shiv Sena led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Thackeray, a former state minister, was speaking at a campaign rally ahead of the November 20 assembly elections.
"It is my responsibiity to make anyone who threatens you (Sena UBT workers) sleep on ice slab because we are forming the next government," he said.
Notably, forcing a person to lie on an ice slab was once known as a way of custodial torture.
Hitting back, Ramdas Kadam, a former Leader of Opposition in the legislative council, said his son was Aaditya Thackeray's friend when they were in the same party, but Aaditya later expelled people close to them in Dapoli.
Despite being the local MLA, Yogesh was sidelined during the Dapoli municipal council polls, his father claimed.
It was Aaditya Thackeray who was a traitor as he took away his ministry, Ramdas Kadam further said.
The senior Kadam was environment minister in the Devendra Fadnavis government, but he did not find place in the subsequent Uddhav Thackeray-led dispensation. Aaditya handled the environment portfolio in his father's government.
In 2022, after the Sena split, the Kadams sided with the faction led by Eknath Shinde.
