Mumbai, (The Hindu): Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray on Thursday claimed that Dawood Ibrahim is keen to come back to India and is negotiating his return with the Centre, which wants to take credit for bringing the gangster back.

Speaking at the launch of his official Facebook page, Mr. Thackeray said, “Dawood is now physically handicapped. Hence, he is keen on returning to India and has been negotiating with the Union government. The government will bring him back just before the general elections and try to take credit for it … I am not joking; it is the truth that you will realise later.”

He said, “Once [Dawood] is ready to return to India, the Narendra Modi government will blow its own trumpet about it … It will be a political move by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).”

Mr. Thackeray’s remarks come days after the Thane police arrested Dawood’s younger brother Iqbal Kaskar on charges of extortion. “Being a cartoonist, I have a habit of reading between the lines,” the MNS president said.

Mr. Thackeray said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was always in election mode. “The level the BJP can fall to is amazing. It is using Japanese Prime Minister for the Gujarat election. Shouldn’t the prime minister of a foreign country have gone to Delhi? But he was brought to Ahmedabad. I am sure that Mr. Abe must have realised after returning to Japan that he was used for elections,” he said.

The MNS president also spoke against the imposition of Hindi across the country. Mr. Thackeray said the manner in which writers, actors and politicians in southern States, particularly Karnataka, stood up against making Hindi mandatory in the Metro project was a lesson for Maharashtra.

“I was the first to extend support to Mr. Modi’s prime ministerial candidature, under the hope that he would bring development to this nation. But the last three years have seen nothing but false and tall promises with nothing materialising on ground. I will not hesitate to criticise him if required,” he said.

Earlier, Mr Thackeray said he would use his new official Facebook page to express his thoughts every day. The page received 4.67 lakh ‘likes’ on the first day.