MUMBAI: Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Monday said his party’s Hindutva was not about the protection of cows at the expense of women’s safety.

In the first of a three-part Q&A session with Saamna, Uddhav said the Sena certainly didn’t favour cow slaughter. “But while cows are being protected, India has been ranked the most unsafe place for women. We should be ashamed of this. Gau mata must be saved, but what about our mata? If you’re going to go around inquiring about beef consumption without protecting our own mata, that’s just humbug. That’s not Hindutva,” he said.

Uddhav also said the Sena was not concerned about “(PM Narendra) Modi’s dreams but about the dreams of the people” and said he was a friend of the “Bharatiya janata.”

Explaining the Sena’s decision to abstain during the no-trust motion moved by the TDP in Parliament, he said, without naming anyone, “I will hunt but I don’t need to shoot over anyone else’s shoulder. Nor will I need a gun for the hunt.”

The Thackeray interview has come hot on the heels of BJP president Amit Shah’s advice to party workers in Maharashtra to go ahead with poll preparations irrespective of the alliance with Sena. Shah had addressed state BJP workers at a meeting in Mumbai on Sunday.

